The Sunshine of My Life

This weather is too beautiful. Almost unbelievably so. Thank you, God!

I love it when the laundry dries in a few short hours out on the washline.

I love having the windows open and the fresh air blowing into my house.

I love being off work on the same day as my husband. And then going about our household tasks knowing that we're just a quick shout apart.

I love the excitement of preparing for a fun trip and all the scurrying around that comes in the days before leaving.

A beautiful day!

Preview of the beautiful paint job my hubby is doing to our house!

I was off of Tuesday so I spent most of the day in one of my favorite places, my kitchen. I'm prepping for my trip next week, trying to make sure Walter has enough to eat while I'm gone. Not that he would starve if left to his own devices, I just like to take care of him.

For lunch, I made Curried Cauliflower Soup. I had a recipe but didn't have everything it called for (as usual!). We ate some, put some in the fridge, and I froze 2 containers worth. Six cups of cauliflower and I still have 2/3 of the head left. Those things are amazing.  I tried to have homemade crackers (with wheat flour, not spelt, only because sadly I had no spelt) done to go with it, but he came home for lunch a little sooner than they could bake.

I cut up 2 baby canteloupes we got at the farm market on Saturday. They were really cute. We also had a mango that just wasn't ripening. Solution: I pureed it and froze it into nice little heart shaped ice cubes. Who knows what I'll use them for, but at least it's not wasted!

Next up was bread and cookies. Wheat Bread & Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies to be exact. There's something wonderful about watching and smelling yeast as you're prepping the bread. Mmmm... I used whole, cooked wheat berries instead of cracked ones for the bread so they were spotted throughout, like nuts or something. The cookies were a little more work than I expected because the recipe calls for you to melt the butter in a pan until brown and bubbling. <Sidenote: I remember as a little kid we'd make browned butter for on popcorn at my grandparents. It makes the popcorn DELICIOUS. If you haven't tried it, do. But that's the first and only time I'll promote butter.>  I almost skipped that step, but remembered how good the brown butter was on the popcorn so I thought it might be worth it. It wasn't. The cookies are full of peanut butter flavor and deliciousness, though!

We had my mom over for dinner. She was going to have to eat alone because Dad had a dinner meeting, so we saved her from that tragedy. Broccoli, twice baked potatoes, fresh bread with baked tomatoes, and a huge salad were dinner. I still have all these tomatoes laying around, with more still ripening on the vines!

And for dessert - Almond Pear Tart. With much less sugar than it called for. I used non-hydogenated shortening for the crust and no butter in the filling. I also skipped the glaze. It was delicious without it!

Why can't every day be like Tuesday?