Twolips

Yellow

Bloom

Playing around with one of Jerry Jones' textures, Topaz Adjust, and a pattern stamp brush with a photo of a daffodil.

Pasta

Made this for dinner last night. Turned out to be a great, light spring supper.

Here's how I did it:

I made it up, so there are no exact amounts. Just kind of eyeball it.

Small-size pasta, like small shells, small bowties, small elbows, etc. (I used about 8 oz for 2 people...planning for leftovers)

Fresh asparagus (amount to your liking, and depending on # of servings; I used 1 lb for 2 people….Jon and I love asparagus)

Olive oil

Butter

1-2 whole garlic cloves (to your liking)

Grape tomatoes

Diced grilled or store-bought rotisserie chicken (I used one good-sized breast for 2 people)

Black pepper and shredded Parmesan cheese, to taste

In a large pot, boil the pasta in salted water. In the meantime, cut the asparagus into pieces approximately the same size as your pasta. During the last 2-3 minutes of cooking time, toss the asparagus into the pasta pot to cook up to crisp-tender while the pasta finishes cooking

Peel the paper off the garlic, but don’t dice it up. In a large skillet add 3-4 TBS of olive oil, and 1-2 TBS of butter. Toss in the garlic and set to low-to medium heat; enough to melt the butter but not brown it. The garlic flavor will infuse through the oil/butter mixture.

Toss in a good handful of grape tomatoes and cook until the skin blisters – 3-4 minutes. Add diced, cooked chicken to heat through. Adjust the amounts of oil and butter if needed. You’ll lightly coat the pasta/asparagus mix with the butter/oil, so use that as a guide for quantity. You don’t want the pasta to be greasy, just flavorful.

Drain the pasta/asparagus, and add to the skillet. Toss gently to combine, and then transfer to a serving dish. Remove the garlic cloves. Serve hot, with a dash of fresh-ground black pepper and a sprinkle of shredded (better than grated) Parmesan cheese. This is also delicious cold.

Let me know if you whip this up some night. 

Afternoon light

Just before dusk  is a pretty time of day to visit a forest preserve.

One, two, three . . .

 . . . two hundred thirteen, two hundred fourteen, two hundred fifteen.

These steps, beside an old carriage house (with a being-restored carriage inside) led up to another street, 151 steps away, then, in two more tiers of steps, topped off high above the town of Galena, 215 steps from where we began our ascent.

Going down was much easier...

PS: If I type the labels as, one, two, three, Blogger alphabetizes them into one, three, two. Weird!

Lunchtime!

Two cedar waxwings enjoy a lunch  of brightly colored berries.