I have to admit it. I turned on the furnace last Thursday. It was chilly in the house, with a hard freeze predicted for Friday night/Saturday morning. I hate being chilly and just dressing more warmly indoors doesn’t help.
I set the thermostat at 70°. Who can argue about 70°? None of my housemates complained, not even Boommate who is always too warm. Now that it will be warmer this week, I doubt the furnace will kick in very often. But should the house temp drop below 70°, I shall still be comfortable. The dogs have been snuggling closer at night since the temps dropped.
I love fall weather. I love wrapping up in blankets. We have several Pendleton wool blankets, a really warm and fuzzy Norwegian wool blanket, quilts, and several down comforters. We are set for cold weather and chilly nights. I find my cooking plans have changed somewhat this past week, too, and I am finding soups and stews more appealing than salads. Husband picked all the tomatoes Friday before the freeze, and they are ripening in boxes in the garage. The Swiss Chard survived the freeze, but as I have frozen pounds of it already, I think we shall let it face its fate in the coming weeks. I, in any event, will be warm.
What is your cue to turn on the furnace? Favorite chilly weather foods? How do you keep your garden going through early freezes and frosts?
I’ m hoping to hold out on the furness until November. Supposed to hit 70° the end of the week.
I have a wool blanket older than I am (the kind with the red/yellow/blue stripes on the ends but tag doesn’t say Faribault) that I might have to deploy before then.
I got everything I plan to hauled in Friday night, now we’ll see how I do keeping it alive and unscathed by kitties!
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I’m afraid we have already turned it on – Husband gets chilled easily these days, even after putting on extra layers. We have also brought out the foot-warming heating pad at his chair.
Like Renee, we keep it at 70, and it has dipped below that on a few days here.
I am looking forward to making chili, and made a nice cabbage soup last week. It’s nice to feel like baking again, too. I have some blueberries for muffins, or maybe try Renee’s Crumble recipe that I printed off a while ago.
Harvested what was left of the beets and carrots yesterday, so the garden is put to bed.
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My furnace cue is when the thermostat dips to 68 or less. That’s our normal heat setting. Just turned it on last week, as did many folks, I’m sure.
Chilly weather foods are soup, stew, homemade pizza (just had one on Saturday), slow-cooker meals (my wife’s “specialty”), and roasted meats and fish (salmon) with roasted veggies.
I don’t try too hard to protect our minimal garden against frost/freeze. When it comes, it comes. Especially this year, when I have five times more tomatoes than usual. What’s up with that?? 😉
Chris in Owatonna
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Rise and Stay Warm, Baboons,
We discovered that our furnace is broken. The repair guy was here twice last week, then ordered parts, and someone is to be here today to finish the repair. The window they gave me is 8am-11pm. Not kidding. So someone needs to be home until they actually get here. Meanwhile, we stayed plenty warm with a space heater, the electric heat on the porch, and the gas fireplace with little discomfort. The problem is the control panel. I am deeply grateful that this happened now, not on January 1.
I could use some new soup recipe suggestions. I have already been making soup–my favorite winter food. I have done posole, chili, beef barley, and squash apple–all regulars on our winter menu.
Today we will complete the task of emptying the outdoor pots and replanting the stuff I over-winter.
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I hope to make Thai Carrot Soup, the recipe which I’m sure was in our Kitchen Congress – but I no longer see Kitchen Congress here… Anyone else? or maybe I have the name wrong…
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Wow – thanks.
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Our furnace is now repaired.
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Well, Kelly is cold in the middle of summer. Her comfort zone is about 85 degrees.
Meanwhile, I get hot at 75, or 70 depending on the humidity. But my feet are always cold. And I always want air moving. So I won’t turn the heat on until it’s 30’s for lows consistently… Kelly has blankets.
And daughter runs around barefoot, and in a T-shirt and undies all year. I keep telling her to put socks on at least!
We’re all independent people… 🙂
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I have mixed feelings about the tomatoes. I am heartily sick of putting up tomatoes. But I jate to see food wasted. Husband gave a huge armload of basil to a friend. At least I don’t have to make more pesto.
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I also gave basil to friends.
Our food pantry accepts fresh “overstock” from gardens – that’s where I’ll take some green peppers.
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I bet our local food pantry does, too.
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We haven’t turned the furnace on yet. We have windows facing south and west that keep the house warm during the day and I just layer up later in the day. Husband tolerates cold better than I do and is still wearing short sleeves.
The constant heat this summer made cooking and baking unbearable, so we did a lot of sandwiches, salads, pasta salads, and grilling. Our list of cold-weather dishes is much larger, so I’m happy to be able to switch our seasonal menu. Over the weekend I made Detroit-style pizza, apple cake, rustic bread, and beef stew.
Our “garden” is on the deck, so it’s pretty easy to manage when the weather gets cold. On Friday I brought a few of the less cold-resistant plants indoors (mandavilla, basil, gerbera daisies), harvested the last of the hot peppers, and covered everything else with my large collection of old sheets. Soon we’ll harvest the herbs that we want to dry for the winter. I’m not sure what will happen to the basil; we already have a lot of pesto in the freezer, but Husband hates throwing it away.
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I’m holding out on the heat so far. When the forecast predicts a solid week of cold, that will likely serve as a cue to bring the thermostat up.
I don’t like being cold, but paying the heating bill is no fun either.
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I successfully freeze many herbs including basil. I strip the leaves after washing & spinning then bag them. You can crumble the frozen leaves into your dish. Herbs that freeze well are Thyme, rosemary, tarragon, lemon verbena, cilantro ( I chop cilantro in food processor first; break off chunks to put in beans, soup etc) Sage- freeze or dry. Mint definitely is better dried. Parsley I buy fresh.
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Thanks!
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I have one of those setback thermostats. In the spring as it’s heating up, I change the programming so that the it has to be really really cold for the boiler to kick in. And then at this time of year, I reset it a little bit and then when I start to feel cold, which is normally in December, then I crank it up a little bit. We normally live with 67 during the day 55 at night during the winter. Fat socks, long sleeve T-shirts, sweatshirts, blankets.
I could never have too much basil. I even imported some from Bill this year. We go through a lot of pesto and I also freeze basil in olive oil. Chop it up, stuff it into an ice cube tray, then pour the oil over and then freeze — since a lot of the dishes I make that have basil in them also have olive oil in them. Perfect little cubes ready to go.
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Sorry! I’m a day late!
I might be the extreme as far as the heat goes. I’m rarely cold. I have not felt cold yet this year at all. My cue for turning on the furnace is when the thermostat reads 64 or lower. I should probably do a test run though.
I like making soups too. I made squash-apple soup last weekend.
I have a few carrots in one of my cedar boxes, as well as some chard. I also have parsley and chives which will be allowed to expire. I expected the last frost we had to kill my nasturtiums, but they’re fine. They’re lovely, but they will be allowed to expire too.
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