How would like to spend a summer here in Vicenza? I know I surely would. What a fortunate girl young Sarah is. I suppose you all know if you click on the photo's they will come up larger.I am still waiting to receive an e-mail from Sarah but her parents have communicated with her so they know she made the trip without mishap and is settling in. In fact she has already been doing a little sight seeing. Yesterday she was at a popular beach enjoying time with other student teachers. Way to go Sarah!
Today is Tuesday even though I started this blog yesterday.
I went grocery shopping early this morning so the weeks menu is set. I tried to not spend to much but what to do when the freezer goods are lacking and the pantry is sparse? It seems all at once we needed lots!
When I watered the garden yesterday I noticed that the lettuce has holes in the leaves. Must be bugs of some sort. Darn. So I will look up online what needs to be done to discourage them. Of course as I mentioned the cucumbers are gone so I have purchased yet more plants to be set in the ground tomorrow. Truthfully if these do not take I think we will give up on them. They are hubbies fave to grow as he loves to make his Mother's cucumber salad, he practicably lives on that salad in the summer time. I am not really a fan as it has sour cream in it and is just not to my liking. I prefer just to slice my cucumbers in spears and give them a sprinkle of sea salt and pepper and munch away. I also like thin sliced cucumbers in sandwiches with butter, salt and pepper. How strange it that? Sounds like an English sandwich.
I am going to make a rustic apple pie this week. It will be a nice addition to our beer can chicken dinner on Saturday. I will get some vanilla frozen yogurt to go with. A rustic apple pie is nothing more than the regular pie you would make except you use only one crust. You make the filling the same just a lesser amount then heap the apple filling on one large pie crust and fold the edges up over the pie overlapping the dough as you go. This leaves a opening in the middle without crust. When it bakes it is pretty as you see the open center with all the juicy apples sprinkled with cinnamon and the crust is browned and sticky from all juice. I cannot wait, once again not what I need but what will a small piece hurt?
This actually brings back a memory. When I was newly married at eighteen I went to my sister in laws for morning coffee and she gave me some rhubarb to make a pie. I was not a working wife at that time and I was learning to be a homemaker and more importantly a cook. While my husband was at work I looked at the Betty Crocker cookbook and decided to make a rhubarb cream pie. You chop up the rhubarb put it in the pie shell and pour a filling made of eggs, sugar and nutmeg etc over the top and then place the top crust on. Well I absolutely amazed myself. The pie came out of the oven a perfect pie in every way. I let it cool and later I thought I would try a small piece. I cut a piece and I could not believe how wonderful that pie taste. A while later I cut another little piece, later still another piece and on and on it went. Then I realized with a shock that about two thirds of the pie was gone. I was now in a fix as I did not want my husband to know I had eaten so much pie. So I just grabbed a spoon and finished it off, washed the pie plate and put it back in the cupboard. I never said a word about the pie. That following weekend we were with family and my sister in law asked me how the pie turned out. My husband said, what pie? I started to lie and say I never made a pie but then what would I have done with the rhubarb? So I confessed the truth. I was so embarrassed and felt like a pie pig. They always laughed about that story long after the fact. But truthfully my husband was irritated by the whole thing as he liked rhubarb pie. A day or two after I confessed he came home with another bag of rhubarb and I had to make another pie for him. You know it all most made me sick to smell it baking. If I recall I did not even have a piece of that pie. I did continue to make that pie often though as it became a family favorite even the kids loved it. I learned to enjoy a small piece every now and then. That actually was the second whole pie I have eaten. The first one was a lemon pie that my Mother had made. It was on the counter when I came home from school, she was not home and I started taking slices and the same thing happened. However she knew I ate the whole thing! What was wrong with me?
Friday evening we will be attending our niece Brooke's high school graduation. This is the niece that has so much talent. She sings, plays the oboe, acts, dances. Well you just name it she can do it and do it well. She has loved performing since she was three years old. Her graduation will be held at the Hult Center our venue for the performing arts here in Eugene. It is a wonderful facility and the acoustics are incredible. It will not be the normal graduation ceremony. There will be speeches of course but also entertainment. Brooke is singing two songs. We have no idea how long it will last as it is a large high school, So we will be venturing out for the evening which is something we never do, I hope we can stay awake if it goes past ten we may be snoozing in our seats!
Well it certainly has been a busy day and still I must get dinner prep going. Tonight we are having a big salad, and flat iron steak I will make the steak in my iron skillet. Simple and satisfying. For the price of those steaks they are wonderfully flavorful and juicy. Make sure you let them sit ten minutes under foil before slicing, I like to add a pat or two of butter it melts down over the meat.
Do have a nice evening wherever you are. It is mild here the doors are open and the air smells of fresh cut grass and the wind chimes are tinkling in the breeze. I took my Claritan tab this morning so all should be fine with the grasses and tree pollen.
Till later.
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