It's winter. I don't have any snow, but I do have glowing boats.

I think I only take pictures on the sunny days so you may get a mistaken impression. It's been cold lately and despite the weather threats last week we didn't really have snow stick in the District. Here's a mix of photos from the last couple of weeks.

Winter from my window on December 8.

Saturday (12/7) was sunny. The scaffolding is coming down on the Washington Monument.

Cranes are building the National Museum of African American History.

A nice colorful protest on the Mall. Their sign said Human Rights for Vietnam so I assume the person on the loudspeaker was talking in Vietnamese since it certainly wasn't English.

I watched the parade of boats with Tad and Colleen. This gives you a sense of it but of course the pictures aren't great.

Rockin' Santas.

A blue shark.

And Hanukkah was represented too. 

The boats were tied up at the waterfront docks later. Much easier to photograph!

T-Rex, with the reindeer boat (it has antlers and a red nose) behind her and Rockin' Santas in back.

Jerusalem artichokes (shampoo bottle for scale).

Today I'm making soup with some of the Jerusalem artichokes (also called sunchokes). I found a roasted sunchoke soup recipe on Not Eating Out in New York and it's ready to puree now. Actually I did a lot of cooking today, there is a pot of tomato soup simmering too, and a small batch of enchiladas filled with beans and roasted Hubbard squash. The Hubbard is not nearly as sweet as the kabocha/buttercup types so I'll try and use it for cooking.

I also made an extremely yellow loaf of bread--it has 1 cup of butternut squash puree and only 1/4 cup of water. The yellowness was fun, but it was somewhat fragile as bread. It never got crusty and had a fine, soft crumb. Just applesauce on top could make a piece disintegrate if it wasn't toasted pretty well. It did stay moist nicely.

Yeasted Squash Bread

Combine and let proof:

1/4 c water
1 t yeast
2 t sugar

Add:

1 c squash puree
3/4 t salt
1/4 t olive oil
1 c white whole wheat flour
1.5 c bread flour

Mix, knead, let rise 1-2 hours. Punch down. Makes one loaf. Rise 30 minutes. Bake 350 degrees, 40 minutes.

Eat a piece while it is still warm.