Mmm...yummy wheaty goodness close up.
Excitement #2: It has potato salad over romaine lettuce, topped with onions, tomatoes, pepperoncinis, cucumbers, pickled beets, pepper slices, kalamata olives (which we were very sadly out of last night), feta cheese, and anchovies.
Mmm...
Now, before you go sayin, "Ew, anchovies!" understand that I always felt that way about anchovies, too. No more. This salad has completely changed my appreciation for the little fishies. So much so that when I went to get extra anchovies for my salad, my fingers got all fish-oily (yes, apparently we lack utensils 'round these here parts) and without thinking, I licked my fingers clean. Before I had this salad, the mere smell of that fishy oiliness would have sent my stomach reeling. Now, I'm licking my fingers as if it were chocolate pudding. The anchovies totally make the salad.
Here it is with the recipe. Double click to enlarge the picture.
De Grande, you'll be pleased to know that I photocopied the recipe at last, so I'm able to part with your cookbook now! :) I also highly reccomend using blocks of Feta and crumbling it yourself - insanely tasty.
So, when we were done with that scrumptious repast, we saw our new friend, and gave her some very old anchovies to eat.
Excitement #3: This is our new friend. She is a wild kitty (and she may be a he, but we're not getting close enough to look!) In the light, she is such an odd color of grey that she actually looks blue. So, we've named her Blue Cat. Blue, for short. Aren't we just the originalest?
Jason is sure that this is the cat he saw a few months ago, sitting under the streetlamp in the middle of the night. He thought it was a Jaguarundi, but it was probably just the late hour and sleepy stupor he was in that made the cat appear larger than it was.
A week or so ago, he saw the cat again, and stopped to talk to her (I'll call Blue a Her until we discover elsewise). They had a friendly chat, and Jason came home with every intention as adopting her as our "yard cat."
Sho nough, we starting seeing her routinely lurking around our house. We think she was searching for some more kind words from the handsome gent (Jason). A few nights ago, as Jason was eating some crab, he picked a bit of lumpmeat for her and I set it out on a plate on our back stoop. She came up, cautiously at first, and then snarfled it down.
Jason picked more lump, and I put it out. Again, she snarfed it down.
Last night, I set out some old oily anchovy fillets when I saw her milling about. She came quickly to eat them, and then spent a good hour or so sitting all kitty-like on our stoop like a guard. She licked her chops and watched the sun go down over the water.
We're happy to have a little friend (to take care of rats and snakes). She's happy to have a friend (to provide some extra food outside of rats and snakes).
Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Leif took it upon himself last week to get a plate out of the china cabinet, a knife (his own), and a fork and set it all on a pillow on the floor. He sat on another pillow, then plopped his fish (from his fishing pole toy) on the plate and began to "eat" it. He made all the proper sounds ("mmm", lipsmacking, munching, etc.) and ate that fish with much gusto.
A smattering of the Bread-making related presents I received for my birthday. Everything in the picture, including the yellow gingham towel everything is set on, was a gift. Bring on the breadmaking!
The book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice, by Peter Reinhart, is the book that DaMomma has gone wild over, and now, so have 2p and I! We're plowing through the book at the pace of a recipe per week (each recipe generally takes 2 days, some more or less) alongside Pinch My Salt. I had been borrowing DaMomma's book, but now I have one of my own! :)
The rising bucket (not sure of the technical name...anybody?...anybody?) is the smallest of many - the largest can hold a brining turkey. They're great because they're marked on the side, so you can see if your dough has doubled in size, etc. I used the small one to make my Lavash yesterday! So many uses - so exciting!
The yellow probe is an instant read thermometer - a Thermapen. I've been pining for one of these for years now. My other thermometers are so slow that by the time I get the reading, the item has already cooled down by 20 degrees! It would literally take 5 minutes or more. Recently, I used a Thermapen and I sat there waiting for it to figure out a temperature. After 30 seconds of waiting, I realized that it had read the temperature in the first two or three seconds and that I wasn't even thinking it would read that fast, so I kept waiting.
Dur-real!
So the new Thermapen is really exciting - I can use it for baking bread - the dough temp and the bread temp, and for all other things - meat, etc. And, hmm, looks like the inside of my house is 82 degrees!
The towels were a set - the blueberry pancakes one has a whole recipe for blueberry pancakes on it. I always have a towel over my shoulder when I cook, so these are great! And cute! And Martha Stewart! {swoon} :)
The Nature Table
The outsides were glazed in yummy icing and the inside was just as wonderful as you might imagine: warm, sugary and overwhelmingly good.
