Ice and Salvaging

Holy, holy, holy smokes! Today's temperature was -5°F with a windchill "feels like" temperature of -25°F. I am so NOT used to this type of weather. I was born in upstate New York, but only experienced very few winters up there and brief trips to visit family and friends who still live there. The rest of my winters were cozily spent in North Carolina, or Florida, with a very mild temperature and rarely, if any, snow.

When I came downstairs this morning I noticed the front door looked a little different along the sides and bottom perimeters. Ice! On the INSIDE! I put a rolled towel down at the bottom to stop a draft I felt, but I think when the temperature drops this unbelievably low, that's just gotta be some kind of expected side effect. All the little screws on the front door and front windows have ice or little crystals like this on them. Kind of makes me want to watch Fargo. I also cannot wait for the new movie, New in Town, with Harry Connick, Jr. (love him!) and Renee Zellwinger. Trailer is here, for your inevitable amusement.

So, the baked veggie chips from the other night were a massive failure. I didn't want to waste all those wonderful root veggies, though, so I saved them to try and see what I could salvage. I ended up throwing out the burnt pieces, because they really had reduced to the point of ashen charcoal. I learned that the hard way -- by biting into one of them. Not tasty at all!

I sprayed a square baking dish with Pam and then threw the semi-roasted veggies in there with a sprinkling of Kosher salt on top. I covered this with foil and baked them for about 30 minutes. I paired these impromptu roasted veggies with some chicken breasts that I marinated in Annie's Goddess dressing and a diced shallot. I just sauteed the breasts on the stove top while I baked a can of reduced fat crescent rolls. By the end, the vegetables all kind of tasted the same - you really couldn't decipher a difference between normal potato, sweet potato, or beet. That was kind of disappointing to me, but at least they didn't go to waste!