Redfern Place

1 medium yellow onion - chopped

3-4 cloves garlic - minced or run through a microplain

1 red bell pepper - chopped

1# ground turkey, white meat

cumin

chili powder

1/8 - 1/4 tsp cinnamon

chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

1 15 oz can pumpkin

1 15 oz can diced tomatoes

2 15 oz cans kidney beans - drained

Lightly carmelize the onion and red bell pepper.  Add garlic and wait a couple of minutes, but don’t let it brown.  Add ground turkey, a palmful of each:  ground cumin, chili powder, cinnamon & salt and pepper to taste.  Toss around pan until turkey in starting to brown up and spices are fragrant.  I diced two chipotle peppers and added them at this point with 1-2 tablespoons (give or take) of adobo sauce.  Use more or less chipotles and sauce to taste.  Let chipotles saute a bit with the rest of the ingredients, then add the can of diced tomatoes and the can of pumpkin puree.  Stir everything together and reduce the heat to a simmer.  If the chili seems too thick, add chicken stock or water to thin it out a bit.  Add kidney beans and let simmer low for about 30 minutes.  Taste to check seasonings and adjust salt and pepper as needed.

Top servings with the usual chili toppings - avocado and cilantro are great on this with cornbread on the side.

The vultures returned this evening during dinner. I jumped up from the dinner table, grabbed the camera and snapped off a couple of pictures while they were soaring around right outside. This time I did not have the teleconverter on the camera, but they were much closer than this morning. Click on the picture the see a larger version (100% crop).

Soaring Vulture

This morning saw a pair of vultures and a lone hawk. One of the vultures took perch on the top of one of the trees for a photo-op. The Hawk took perch in another tree.

Photographed with a Canon 1D-MkII using the 70-200 f/2.8 USM IS at 200mm with the Kenko 1.4x Teleconverter. I need a longer lens for this kind of picture. These crops are 100% and barely good enough for web display. There’s no hope of getting a decent print from these.

Kevin and I made up this delicious pizza tonight.  Really tasty!

• 1 bag of prepared pizza dough (we used whole foods raw dough)
• 1 chicken with spinach and feta sausage (again, from whole foods in the meat counter)
• 2″ piece of garlic and herb chevre
• sliced artichoke hearts
• fresh basil
• tomato
• kalamata olives

Work the dough out into whatever shape you like, round or rectangular works well.  We worked ours out really thin and baked the pizza on a silpat over a pizza stone, which came out really crispy.

Warm up some olive oil and add a couple of cloves of fresh, slightly smashed garlic.  Don’t brown the garlic, just have the oil warm enough to get the cloves bubbling.  The oil from the garlic will infuse the olive oil.

While the oil is cooling, remove the chicken sausage from the casing and brown.  Brush a light layer of your infused olive oil over crust.  Sprinkle crust with sausage, crumbled chevre, a generous portion of torn basil leaves, the sliced artichoke hearts and sliced kalamata olives.  Use the toppings lightly, combined their flavors are potent.  Bake in a 425 degree oven for 10 - 15 minutes, checking after 10.  Remove from the over when the crust is brown and crisp.  Top with fresh sliced tomatoes.

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Spent the day today photographing the birds that were frequenting the feeder during this cold winter day. All photos were taken from inside the house with my Canon 1DMkII, the 70-200/2.8 lens with a 1.4x teleconverter, and some heavy cropping in Lightroom.

 

I walked out on our front balcony tonight to watch Yvette shoveling snow off the driveway (she’s the best wife ever) and saw the amazing stand of trees on the other side of the cul-de-sac lit up with the neighborhood kids out playing in the circle.

A panorama constructed from 16 images. Click on the image to see a larger version.

 

It’s going to be several days before we thaw out.

 

More pictures from our winter storm…which turned icy last night.

 

We’ve had snow on the ground for 9 days or so now and a lot more has fallen today. The next three or four days promise to bring more snow and freezing rain. Here’s a picture taken right out the front door this evening. We’re ready to hunker in for the season.