A rushed Sunday night post...

I have been wanting to blog all week... and then all weekend... and now it is almost 8 pm on Sunday night, an hour and a half before I need to go to bed to start another week by hitting the gym at 5 am and somehow this blog post hasn't yet happened!  How to work, garden, bake, cook, grocery shop, run 19 miles, spend time with your husband, clean, fold laundry, read the news, read a novel, talk to your parents, talk to your sister, go to a state fair, sleep (some) and blog all in one weekend?!?  I am working on this... I managed all of this over the weekend, so apologies if this blog post comes a little bit abbreviated...

First, one piece of big news in Voorheesville is Brandon got a jeep!  It is really awesome and much needed... and look he is so happy! :)

And here's what's been happening in the country kitchen since the last post...

I made three (yes... 3) types of bread... this is a lot! First, here is a chocolate coconut bread (sinful) and a basic "no knead" bread.  These are both from Jim Lahey... these are WONDERFUL... I left Brandon to do the actual baking and he survived it... although one kitchen towel appears to have tried to eat the rising bread... these things only happen to Brandon, I swear...

And here is a wheat loaf I made today... it is SOOO good... I am wondering why I have never made basic wheat bread before... It has stolen my heart! It is a different thing entirely than what you buy in loaves from the grocery store, dense but fluffy, soft, substantial and this recipe has honey and buttermilk in it... enough said!... with butter it is heavenly.  It will be great for Brandon's ham and cheese sandwiches... WITH... homemade pickles! (which we tried by the way this weekend and they came out great!)

I also had some fun with thai food this last week!  I made Shrimp Pad Thai last weekend, and summer rolls (no pics for the rolls unfortunately) and then last night I made Thai chicken and basil and a thai-inspired salad... all YUM!

Here is the pad thai... the picture is unfortunately blurry.. but the flavors were sharp and wonderful!  I used this recipe.

... and here is my "thai-inspired" salad... It has papaya, cucumbers, red pepper, cherry tomatoes (from the garden!), green onions, peanuts, shredded lettuce, jalepenos, some fish sauce, rice vinegar, sesame sauce, a touch of sugar.. very refreshing!

And here is the chicken basil... i used this recipe, more or less... Thai Chicken with Basil Stir Fry

I also made more fresh pesto with loads of basil from the garden, but this time I used a much lighter recipe which is one my dad uses... it has no cheese or butter, only basil (3 cups packed), walnuts (about 8 Tbs), olive oil (about 2-3 Tbs), garlic (3-4 cloves) and a bit of salt... it was wonderful with pasta tonight and a corn and tomato salad..

In other fun news, we have TONS of green tomatoes, and as of yesterday, finally some ripe cherry tomatoes!  I pickled some green tomatoes last weekend, and today, with inspiration from my trip to South Carolina, I made fried green tomatoes with a Remoulade sauce and some pickled jalepenos.  YUMMMM!  This was lunch...

Well that mostly does it for food!  In store for tomorrow is catfish tacos... and then pizza later in the week...   I know that there are recipes I have promised, and more here I want to post... but time is scarce! I am going to make a real effort to get some up this week...

Phew... well... to leave you, here are some pictures I took of the animals we saw today at the state fair!  Pretty cool :-)

Goats!!

until next time...
-- Anya