What I've been up to this week.
Since you all enjoyed my not-Q&A post a few weeks back, I thought I'd put one up here today since I don't usually post on Sundays.
What did I do this week?
I watched rain fall, which is a blessing, considering how dry it's been here for the last month.
I made English Muffins, which I haven't done in eons.
I got rained on while grilling hamburgers.
I made two batches of blueberry jam.
I soaked in the uber-domestic feeling that floods my soul when I view Mason jars full of homemade goodness.
I helped my kids practice their flutter-kicking.
Zoe practiced too.
Sonia just practiced looking cute.
I made dinner lots of times.
I was reminded yet again that water holds endless appeal for children.
The girls played with their soapy water for at least two hours. Love it.
I made chocolate parfait bars in a 9x13 pan and decided I prefer them in a jelly roll pan, even if it is harder to spread the crust, filling, and frosting in a larger pan.
I made the executive decision to bump Chicken Tacos to next week's menu, and instead I fed my children miscellaneous stuff from the fridge (leftover dip, crackers, raspberries, cucumbers, carrots, and English Muffins spread with blueberry jam.).
Then I sent them off to play and I ate sushi. It was blissfully peaceful.
Did I mention the rain?
I made a blueberry coffeecake (and blueberry muffins and blueberry pancakes. Because it'll be another year before we have 20 pounds of blueberries again!).
So, that's a peek into the parts of my week that my camera captured. What filled your days this past week?
This week was quite busy at work, as I had to pretend to be my supervisor as well. The small cadre of experienced personnel - me (the others were on business trips) - is training up a large group of newbies so supervising is rather time comsuming. In retrospect, supervising well may have been a mistake. I've been resisting management for lo these many years, doing it well is not going to help.
I had an utterly fantastic Japanese dinner on Friday to celebrate a friend's birthday. The restuarant is well known and the staff very politely pushy. For example, the waitress kept moving B's chopstick rest from the side of the tray to the front because that's where chopsticks are supposed to be, never mind that to the side was more convenient for B. I learned that "orange roughy" is another name for "St. Peter's fish." Wish I knew this years ago because I know that St. Peter's fish is one of the best white fishes out there.
Today I'm indulging in an orgy of fridge-cleaning (necessary to keep food waste down), cooking, and closet organizing.
Next?
Orange Roughy is awesome. But I wish it wasn't so stinking expensive!
I didn't get to the closet organizing but I did organize the laundry room shelves, something that's been on my list for several months.
My cooking haul used up a ton of food: fresh red potatoes, shallot, colored peppers that others foolishly thought were garnish, chard, corn cobs, chix hearts & gizzards, the braised scallions that weren't good, assorted veggies.
- oatmeal bread & rolls
- Louisiana Dirty Rice with braised scallion sauce
- chopped veggies to snack on
- choc chip cookie dough, now frozen in cookie-sized rounds
- corn cob stock
- Chard White Bean Soup [1]
- laundry detergent
I didn't get to the steak fajitas as I planned, the skirt steak is sitting next to the NY strips that are aging in the fridge.
[1] This was a lesson in cooking. I made it with the corn cob stock; I guess the stock wasn't very good because the soup tasted like dishwater when it was finished cooking. I added most of my "hidden perkers": tabasco, red wine vineger (Cabernet in this case), crushed capers, tomato paste. It was the tomato paste that did it. Had I my wits about me I would have added real balsamic, tomato paste and perhaps crushed anchovies. In any event, now it's very good and I'm looking forward to having it for lunch many times.
My friend Edna let me come over and pick a TON of peaches off of her tree!
Oooh, I LOVE fresh peaches. They're just starting to come into season in my local markets.
English muffins look great, do you have the recipe? Would love it!
I took pictures of the process, of course! lol Come back on Wednesday to learn how to make 'em. 🙂
Yay! I was just coming to ask you for this! Thanks for sharing. I have used so many of your bread recipe's already and am directing new bread bakers here as your photos make it so much easier to learn! Thank you Thank you Thank you!
I'm not ready for a week of rain, or even more than a couple of days of it, but I am ready for just one nice rainy day to soak the garden again, and wash the dust off of everything. A month ago I couldn't imagine myself saying that!
Local blueberries are for sale everywhere, and there are still some strawberries too but I have no place to freeze them, or space to put everything I could make with them, and we can't eat that many fast enough. This is when I really miss having a freezer (ours died on us last year and we haven't replaced it). Thankfully our blueberry bushes are loaded this year, and are producing enough at once for a batch of muffins or coffee cake (but not enough for jam).
The girls haven't asked to go to the pool even once this year and have shrugged it off when I've suggested it. Do kids outgrow wanting to swim? I remember them begging to go every day in the not too distant past.
Yes, I love having a freezer! My jam is all freezer jam and I have plenty of space for it. Love freezer jam!
What a lovely post! My heart swells with domestic feelings after canning, too. And Mason jars full of jam are just so pretty.
This is such a beautiful post! Thanks for sharing!
I always feel super domestic when I bake bread. Something about the way the house smells and having a little flour on face makes me feel so good. I really wish I could get my hands on that many blueberries (or really that much of any fruit)! I would love to try my hand at canning!
Aww, I'm glad you (and the others) liked it...I was a little worried it'd be too much more-of-the-same because of my 365 blog.
I loved this post!
wow! you've been busy! looks fantastic 😉
Must. Have. Recipe. for the English muffins :). They look wonderful!
Sounds like a great and productive week!
I picked a whole colander full of plums off the landlord's tree that grows right by my balcony. I know perfectly well he doesn't want them, because every year that thing drops tons of squishy plums for people to step on and track into their apartments. It was a community service! Yeah, that's the ticket! 😉
Hmmmm...what did we do this week. It was blissfully quiet at work, so I got a lot done. I had lunch with a co-worker so we could catch up--I ordered the children's burrito at California Tortilla, which was the perfect size and portion. I spent Friday night at the pool with my son, his friend, and his friend's cousin--all three of whom went to camp together this week and struck up a fast friendship...it was sad when his cousin had to go home. Yesterday, I had fun working in my garden since it was thankfully not as hot as it's been...in fact, there were gentle breezes...and I noticed my petunias are getting bigger...who says you need Wave Petunias...my Home Depot bargains are filling out beautifully on their own. My Impasiens are doing well, too. Then, last night we went to Carabas for dinner...yum! And today, I visited three stores and stocked up for the week--$102...woo hoo! I've saved a bundle these past few weeks, thanks to you FG 🙂 Then, it was back to the pool with my son and a neighbor friend...and an impromptu cookout with this neighbor's family. Including some excellent red wine 🙂 A good week!
took my son and his neighbor friend to the pool...aft
Yum!! What is that delicious-looking chicken/ham/cheese dinner? Can we get that recipe too?
And the rain was WONDERFUL this week! No more crunchy grass!! Hoping for more this week too!
The blueberry jam is GORGEOUS!!!
Yes, I'm going to post that recipe. 🙂
Yum, yum, yum!!!! I'm baking bread today with fresh yeast for the first time ever... I also started my own sour dough yeast so I must start taking pics for my blog soon.
that sorta answers one of my questions, who does the grilling out in your family lol I feel like the ONLY woman who does the grilling. Dh has never had the patience for it, I think a lot of stuff his dad tried to teach him, his dad had a bit of a temper & so dh pulled back.
Same thing with when you did your deck power wash. Was it YOU who did it? I wind up doing a LOT of repairs in the house, again, dh just never learned (I've been forced to learn however lol) & I do believe a lot of that hesitance has to do with the times his dad yelled or whatever. Sad & reminds me to learn to be patient when teaching my own kiddos to do things around the house.
lol! I prefer to do the grilling myself...my husband used to do it some, but then for some reason I took over.
My husband did do the power washing of the deck, though! I have wrist/hand/elbow problems and so I can't do jobs like that. Same with carpet cleaning...my husband steam cleans the carpets because that job hurts my wrists.
I do tend to do a fair number of things that are stereotypically men's work (I paint and spackle and sand, for instance), but then there are things I don't ever touch...I never, ever work on our cars, and I never, ever mow the lawn either.