I'm just missing everyone and felt like blogging, so here I am. Still not much further news on the dad in the hospital front. Though I do want to thank you all for the kind emails and comments. I'm sorry that I haven't responded to everyone, I've just been a bit exhausted lately. But I have read them all and you are all just too sweet for words. He's stable right now. They've reserved a room in the ICU for him just in case anything were to happen and they're continuing to explore surgery options, but for now it's kind of just a waiting and keeping him comfortable game.
So after going to visit with him this morning I needed a distraction!! So I cooked :p The first thing I cooked was this amazing sounding
meatsauce that Trish posted about the other day. It's actually still cooking in the crockpot right now and won't be ready til midnight but it has the whole house smelling amazing!!! Can't wait to taste it!!
Once that got started cooking, I went back to
the One Girl Cookies cookbook, because
if you haven't noticed by now, I'm a bit obsessed with it :p This weekend I decided to make Milk Pie!!! OMG I never realized how hard pie crust is!! It wasn't hard to make but rolling the damn thing out into an even 11 inch round..it's impossible. Let me just say that my crust was neither even NOR 11 inches...but it'll do. I still haven't tasted it because it's cooling, but it sure does look yummy!!
Then it was gardening time....I bought a few new things and planted them. A yellow globe tomato, another eggplant, a couple of new strawberry plants to go into the planter. And then I planted some more corn. Dug up the rest of the little baby radishes and then cut some herbs to dry in paper bags.
The garden is starting to look more like a garden now that the plants are becoming older and the flower garden is starting to come to life too even though they're all still babies.
Then the last project of the day was an idea I got from Jeane that looked too neat not to try. Subirrigation!! Basically I took a 1-liter plastic bottle and cut it about one third up. poke holes along the top with a heated knife for air holes. Then invert the top into the bottom. You put a piece of felt into the bottom to act as a wick to draw up water into the soil and fill it up with soil. I'm trying to start some brand new seeds this way...roma tomatoes. Though it seems to work well for established plants too. This conserves water and it's a great way to recycle soda bottles!! I'm excited :D
Check out Jeane's gardening blog for all of her experiments with it!
And now I'm off to read...I started the first
39 Clues book just for fun, I'm also reading Anjali Banerjee's
Maya Running and still plugging away at Anne Rice's
The Wolf Gift.
How's your Saturday going??
8 comments:
The 39 Clues books are for fun for me, too. I am hoping to get back to them next week. My reading time was limited this week.
I want a garden! We need to move...
Yum! Crock pot sauce and milk pie? Sounds like y'all are gonna have a tasty Sunday (or late Saturday evening!). I'm excited because Michael and I started looking at gardening supplies for our balcony today. We even bought a couple pots for the railing. I think we're definitely going to grow tomatoes and then some flowers on the railing, but we're going to have to do some more research into balcony gardening. There's a lot to think about! Fortunately our planting season isn't for a while, so we have some time to think about it.
Your pie crust doesn't need to be the exact size when you roll it out, Chris. Roll it to any size, put it in your dish and then use a knife to trim the excess away. Don't cut it too close though or it'll shrink back too much. (Excess pastry will freeze well or makes delicious cheese straws.:-))Looks to me like you did a fine job regardless of your difficulty. And that meat sauce looks wonderful!
Glad your dad's doing ok.
My son the Chef!
My son the baker!
My son the Gardener!!
now if i can only teach you to iron and clean bathrooms! LOL
dang Chris..your sauce looks great!! and so does your pie! You are turning domestic!!! you are more my son than my sons are!!!!
not sure why but I always liked making piecrusts from scratch..never had any problems, I think I added maybe 1/2 teaspoon more cold water then it calls for and always used Crisco. oh and in case you didn't read it somewhere.. I always rolled the crust between two pieces of wax paper.. floured. those are my tips of the day LOL
I'm sorry to hear about your dad. I hope things keep getting better.
YAY for fun distraction projects though. I wish I could cook, as that food does look pretty good. Hope it was yummy.
Enjoy all of your books. I have a few going myself right now.
-lauren
I'm so sorry to hear about your dad. I hope everything works out well and that he is okay. I know how overwhelming it can be to have a loved one ill while you're still trying to do all your normal daily life stuff.
Your garden and cooking look amazing Chris! You have been so busy and are doing great stuff. I can't wait for the weather to get a bit warmer here so I can get a few plants going on the back porch. I started a little urban garden last year and learned some valuable lessons about what works and what doesn't; I'm eager to try a few new things.
Well, good luck this week! Life sure is a journey, right?
That meatsauce looks amazing! And that milk pie. I'm not even sure what milk pie IS. I hope it was delicious. I'm pretty good at rolling out pie crust. I have very few cooking talents - Jason does most of our cooking - but pie crust I can do. It'll never be a perfect circle, but I can make it even and slightly larger than it needs to be, so I can trim the edges to the right shape. :D
Sorry that there isn't a lot of positive news about your father, but I will keep checking in with hope that this will change. Looks like you did some good taking care of yourself which I would encourage you to keep doing. I know its hard to do, but as you know it is necessary for you to recharge in order to be there for your family.
Post a Comment