I find Smitten Kitchen recipes to either be highly successful or to just not be to my taste--they might be wonderful to someone else, but they don't hit the mark for me. This one was very good though, cornmeal-fried pork chops and smashed potatoes. We re-used the smashed potatoes recipe several times since then as it's easier than mashed but gives you the same feeling.
Sunday lunch was family dinner at my parents' house, and for Sunday supper we tried Grilled Pizza and Grilled Peach Splits, both from Smitten Kitchen. My only complaint is that I did not make a good red sauce, so that felt lacking. We added some chicken teriyaki meatballs from Trader Joe's to the pizza.
Monday we ate at a friend's house: lasagna and salad and garlic bread and chocolate pie. Everything was delicious and we had such a good time catching up.
Tuesday the Son made macaroni and cheese from Betty Crocker. He didn't like cooking the pan he baked it in, but we loved it. We added some chicken strips since we have a new house member for the school year.
Wednesday I made Apricot Beef Stir fry. I used frozen veggie mix and some corn off the cob I had frozen, plus beef flank steak, then a sauce of soy sauce, water, cornstarch, garlic, red pepper flakes, and peach preserves (I didn't have apricot).
Tonight we are having Spanish Tortilla. I'm asking Husband to bring home or pick up a supplement since again, we have four to cook for instead of three.
Tomorrow will be bruschetta with sauteed bell peppers; the linked recipe is similar but not exactly the same as what I'm using. I'm working on Italian Rustic bread today to have ready for those tomorrow.
*I've added chopping some suckers off our dead tree stumps and piling them up every day. Last night I hung up the hammock on two hooks I found.
*The three week cycle of cleaning rooms is going well, but I probably need to add running over the main room floor every Saturday and going over the kitchen counters a few times a week.
*Bread making is still going well; today I'm trying a rustic Italian loaf we can use tomorrow for bruschetta. Tonight will be apricot stir fry.
*Well, it's off to fold laundry!
*We spent a lot of time out of the house while the house was showing, but had less offers than expected based on the amount of showings. We still came through just fine in the end.
*Does anyone else send their young adult comic strips that seem appropriate?
*Tomorrow is the memorial for St. John Vianney. From my saints doc:
Dates: August 4
1786-8/4/1859
Place: Born in Dardilly, France; died in Ars, France
Importance: shows impact of one good priest on a parish; difficulty in studies
Name means: God is gracious
Symbol/Food: lamb cake
Patron: parish priests, confessors
Prayer/Reading: Matthew 9:35-10:1
Quotes: I tell
you that you have less to suffer in following the Cross than in serving the
world and its pleasures.
You cannot please both God and the world at the same time, They are utterly
opposed to each other in their thoughts, their desires, and their actions.
We must always choose the most perfect. Two good works present themselves to be
done, one in favour of a person we love, the other in favour of a person who
has done us some harm. Well, we must give preference to the latter.
We should consider those moments spent before the Blessed Sacrament as the
happiest of our lives.
Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there; if you set it on fire it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and light them and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky; public prayer is like that.
Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself.
Picture from https://www.flickr.com/photos/41583834@N03/4441227402/lightbox/?utm_source=Pinterest&utm_medium=organic
*So far we've settled in well, keeping in the same laundry and grocery routines; right now the Son has Wednesdays off, so shopping for groceries on that day has worked out well.
*We have a three week routine for keeping all the rooms dusted and swept; it's possible we'll need to shorten that down to a two week schedule but for the moment it's working.
*We voted today and got a shipment of CD holders from UPS, so those settling chores are continuing.
*Left for the week is building a bookshelf for the husband and oiling the new cutting board. That's good because I need to go to my great aunt's funeral on Friday out of state, so I should still be able to get everything done.
*I might have already posted these pictures when we were prepping the house, but all of these plants have survived and been replanted at my new house so far. Some are better than others but I'm happy to have all of them with me. The begonia in particular is still going strong!
