This week was fun as I had a few vaca (staycay) days, making for a long weekend. It allowed me to do some cooking and some baking. I was able to be in two of my happy places—the kitchen and on the patio reading.
I had hoped to finish two of the books I’m reading, Impact Players and Allow Me to Retort. Didn’t get all the way through them, but I did make a great dent. It was very nice sitting with a cup of coffee or with our dog by my side, flipping pages and reflecting on what I’d read.
Several hours were spent in the kitchen trying a couple of new dinner recipes. One was chicken pasta with artichoke hearts. The other was a gourmet mac and cheese. The latter batch I made much more than expected. We have been eating leftovers for most of the week. At least they are good leftovers.
With the few peaches that were left from The Peach Truck, I made a peach cake. It was a recipe I had found on the Internet a couple of years ago. It is easy to make, and very easy to eat. The cake turns out very moist, and very peachy flavored. Usually it has some sliced peaches on top, but I used all of them in the cake batter. It may not have been as pretty as previous cakes, but it tasted just as good.
Since the husband had a meeting this past Sunday with his new staff, I offered to make some things for him to take for them to eat. I decided to make some filled cupcakes. They were filled with some of the jams, jellies, and butters I had canned: mango butter, peach preserve, strawberry jam, and apple butter.
As usual, there was some leftover batter. I used it to make mini cupcakes topped with leftover chocolate icing I had frozen. Luckily there was enough batter to make 11 of these. Exactly the number of people attending the meeting.
I received a nice text from the husband after his meeting. He let me know the baked goods were a hit. They had said I was a keeper, and that if he ever left the store, they got to keep me. It was a a nice sentiment to start the day.
Almost forgot, I got up early on the 4th. Well, it wasn’t planned. The dog woke me up very early. She needed to go out. Since I was up, I decided to make pancakes and sausages for breakfast. We topped them off with some blackberry syrup I had put up last summer from berries I had picked myself. It felt nice to make breakfast for the family as I hadn’t done so in quite some time.
We’ll see what I decide to do this coming week.
Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man 