Hella week.
More invoicing done than ever before in a shorter time frame than ever before. And it’ll only get worse as the year goes on as the political campaigns kick in with a vengeance. Blurgh. BUT - I got it all done. YAY me.
AND I finally had time to cook. Lemon tagliatelle with sauteed asparagus, carrots, red bell pepper, and onions.
You can be assured there WAS wine. Surprise, surprise, surprise!
Open faced chicken sausage, peppers, and egg sandwich on toasted ciabatta. Open faced because there was too much filling.
Since you have the plate. Get the bowl. You’ll love it . Hooked for life.
Yeah I also got the pasta bowl. It’s a nice bowl!
Where from? I feel like I have a set of these, but they are packed away and I’ll never find them again. (Kitchen renovation.)
Sur La Table
https://www.surlatable.com/product/PRO-687376/Nova+Deruta+Individual+Pasta+Bowl
Although looking at the Deruta tableware at the Biordi Arts website that @emglow101 mentioned above I’m pretty sure his are a lot nicer.
Then, yes, I do have those.!I love them.
I’m pretty sure I ordered them from a banner ad on this website. 
Now I must research @emglow101’s source. 
It was a very very very nice day. I didn’t wait until Memorial Day, and decided to go get herbs and plants and flowers and pull stuff out of my deck storage. Dianthus flowers were replanted, and various herbs (sweet basil, rosemary, lemon thyme, marjoram, Greek oregano), two lettuces (buttercrunch and romaine), watercress, and 2 tomato plants (Marglobe and Patio tomatoes) were also put into large deck containers.
Dinner was duck breast, pan-seared and finished in the oven to medium-rare. Sauce was sauteed shallots, then blended with orange juice, apricot preserves, and fig balsamic vinegar, simmered and reduced.
Served over Israeli couscous with thyme and shallots, and steamed asparagus sprinkled with chopped pistachios and lemon zest.
There was wine. And it was good. All of it.
Very pretty.
The gardening is exciting! I actually was helping a friend plant her plot in a community garden this morning. I dropped not so subtle hints about my availability to help dispose of excess tomatoes.
Fancy dinner tonight! I like the pistachios on the asparagus
Looonnnnggg fantastic bike ride, not as hot today thankfully.
I made a very late lunch/early dinner with my friend at her place, she’s still recovering from the tail end of strep throat so i made us a cold soup. Kind of like salmorejo but i used some jarred roasted red peppers instead of tomatoes, i love how the bit of bread with the nuts makes it so creamy. Side of garlic toasts with the rest of the demi baguette that didn’t go in the soup. Her husband was slightly panicked about the lack of animal products in his bowl yet licked it clean. Haha.
I’ll probably have a snacky plate with some of the smoked tofu, sugar snap peas and pretzel crisps i picked up before long. New batch of kombucha is crazy bubbly amazing! Drinking a ginger lemon pomegranate one now
I made cookies today. I seldom bake but the recipe appealed to me since it uses oats 3 ways and dried fruit. This became a bit of a Gilligan’s Island project. Couldn’t locate my parchment (probably boxed & in the storage unit from the aborted idea of moving). But did find a nonstick foil! Couldn’t locate flour sifter so improvised. Scavenger hunt for the dried fruit. No brown sugar, trip to grocery. Every thing measured but the white sugar. Pulled the glass canister from the back of the counter, dip the measuring cup in and see that the canister has a spiders web of cracks radiating from the bottom. A trip to the dumpster and another trip to the grocery.
3+ hours later I have cranberry/pecan/oatmeal cookies and apricot/white chocolate/pistachio/oatmeal cookies. And portions of both varieties of dough in the freezer! The first batch was a bit soft and we had breakage. So I ate it. The next batch was crispier. So I had to eat some to compare. There were crumbs. So I ate them.
I’m rather stuffed so dinner will probably be cheese and crackers just after I’ve turned the lights out for bed. Because that’s when hunger will finally hit if today stays true to form.
I would make the cookies again (from a more organized kitchen). I like that there are several variations. Interestingly the cranberry spread much more than the apricot.
Recipe with variations one click away! BTW, with mise en place these would come together in a snap!
Glad you had a nice day to garden! Even when it is physically demanding I still find it relaxing.
Your dinner looks gorgeous!
Such dedication to the cookie project! Sounds like it was properly rewarding though 
I was starting to feel like it was a Candid Camera episode. If the butter hadn’t already been added to the mixer I would have bailed!
Wow. Needed this . Fisherman’s stew , or seafood soup. It was delicious. The exiting part. I had to de beard the mussels. Wine to drink 
Cheers.
I know exactly what you mean.
Oatmeal cranberry white chocolate cookies are one of my favorites. Hardest thing to find are real white chocolate chips. Only TJ has them around here. Everyone else has white “baking” chips. Chopping white chocolate bars gets too expensive.
I can’t believe I missed this recipe. My family reads BraveTart religiously. Thanks for sharing!
Glad to enable, er, I mean help!
I had read that many people felt her recipes were overly sweet. I don’t have a big sweet tooth so considered decreasing the sugar but went with the recipe as written. I don’t find the cookies too sweet. The steel cut oats really add a nice flavor and texture. I would experiment with decreasing the butter (works out to 1.5 t/cookie if my math is right). Your fingers and lips are oily after eating them.
With your baking expertise do you feel the butter could be reduced?
mussels if available at Costco has no beard.Cheap also
My favourite cut of pork. The interior is pale and has almost no contrast which makes it hard to photograph.
SV pork belly. Smeared with gochujang and set under the grill for a couple of minutes. More gochujang and doenjang on the side. Crispy daikon or turnip strips are often served alongside Korean pork belly.
Wine is 1 of these 8 Riesling…
.
