Since the 15th, so that means like two weeks plus of no blog posts. I am going to see if I can remember what I did in all that time. I definitely don’t have enough pictures.
We flew back to Madison from Denver on the 18th. Since we got a direct flight out of Madison we left later in the day, a 6:30pm flight, because the drive from the Madison airport to home is only about 15 minutes, not an hour and a half to two and a half hours like driving back from Milwaukee or Chicago.
We took the light rail to the airport.
And got sandwiches at a place called Snarfs, a chain that’s all over the west with one in the Denver airport.
My veggie sub. Mark had a BLT
The first full day we were back, a Tuesday, I had yoga at 10:00 so decided to have a more leisurely morning. I made some blueberry scones – that came out like muffin tops, I seem to be having a scone jinx, the cinnamon chip ones I made today did not come out right either – before I headed off to yoga.
Cinnamon scones fail. I was trying to use up some cream that I had in the fridge and there was also butter in the scones, so I think they just had too much fat to flour. Like chocolate chip cookes that come out too flat. First they melted, then they burnt.
After yoga, I came home and biked to campus and did a library volunteer shift, then went to the Apple store to pick up a new charger for my iPhone. I think I left one of my chargers in the hotel when we went to Chicago for my birthday. I had to buy a newer style brick & cable, they don’t make the the cables that have one end USB into the brick and the other end Apple’s lightning connector. The new cable has new USB, e or whatever it is on one end and the lightning into the phone on the other. But at least it means with that cable, I can charge my phone and computer on the same brick – the one that came with my computer has two of new USB ports. Sigh. When I got back I made pasta with some of the giant zucchini that Chris game me for my birthday, with corn and ricotta and mascarpone, birthday party leftovers. I made zucchini butter with the rest, and we had a zucchini and goat cheese omelette for dinner on Wednesday after Jasper went home. No pics, but here’s the zucchini butter on toast for Friday breakfast. With yogurt and rhubarb puree.
And here’s Jasper on the last day of bug class, vamping it up in some borrowed Lilo & Stitch sunglasses.
No pics of Thursday, I skipped the food pantry and went to the UW library, then had an online meeting in a meeting room at the public library, because the cleaners were at the house and I didn’t want to go home.
Friday I had a haircut and ran some other car errands, like dropping off the storm window glass to be repaired; it fell out of the back door when Al came to pick up Jasper, and stopping at the co-op where I got some really good watermelon from Tipi.
Tipi watermelon
On Saturday I went and picked tomatoes out at Tipi. And I bought red peppers at garlic. So over that weekend, I processed lots of veggies. I made pickle relish and corn salsa and roasted tomato and red pepper sauce and sweet mild tomato salsa.
After tomato picking cherry tomato sandwich on homemade sourdough sandwich bread
Pickle relish, veg broth with corn cobs and tomatoes skins and pepper insides, and roasted tomato sauce
Medium salsa and a practice apple cake for a class in September
Peeled tomatoes for tomato jam & the empty pan from the apple cake
I guess I didn’t photograph the corn salsa. Other un-photographed items include corn relish and tomato-onion jam that’s a Nicola Lamb recipe. Although I mixed up the instructions and put in the butter that I do not usually add which I think made it not reduce as well. But I’m going to make that batch of jam into tomato tart for brunch tomorrow (Labor Day) and I froze extra tomatoes in containers the right size to make more jam later.
That bring us to this week, finally. Monday I went to breakfast with the retired librarians, always interesting, and then volunteered at the UW library.
Tuesday I went to the food pantry early then did a bunch of car errands, then had to go for an exam which resulted in some kinda scary medical news, but I can’t do anything about it till after TIFF so I am ignoring it all for now. As best as I can.
Wednesday was another Jasper day and bug class was done so we went to check out the newish Cafe Domestique that’s only a few block away. It’s really close to the West HS, so we thought we should go before school starts. Jasper had a morning bun, and the coffee was good, too.
Thursday we went to APT and saw Fallen Angels, quite funny, lots of pratfalls, great choreography.
Friday we got up and went to visit John and Megan in Chicago. We took Megan out for a sandwich then we went to the Art Institute and saw Gustave Caillebotte and Elizabeth Catlett, which was on member preview so not too crowded. I’m going to do the museum pics as a separate post.
We went and had a beer at a place called Life on Marz, that had a small selection of draft beer and lots of other drinks in cans, and some kind of collaborations with other companies so they had lots of fancy bagged snacks, like fancy potato chips and popcorn. And they had cookbooks and games sitting out. Then to Chef’s Special and ate spicy Chinese. In the morning we got bagels and then Megan took us to the train and we were home by 2:00 on Saturday.
The glasses at Life on Marz had decals – the paintings were on the wall. My decal was a little ripped off, probably washed off, but you can see John & Megan in the background here
John’s glass with un-ripped decal
Spicy cukes at Chef’s Special
John & Megan’s tomatoes
I made John & Megan’s tomatoes into a tomato salad that I ate on top of pasta that was sauced with creamy tomato gravy we’d had over sourdough discard biscuits another night last week. Mark had his on his salad.
One of my cooking mishaps was a loaf of sourdough that didn’t rise and is really doughy.
Doughy sourdough
It was better as garlic toast than toast toast, my second breakfast on Saturday.
So, I did use up John & Megan’s tomatoes, but I still have the last of mine to process, and corn. And peppers. I think its going to be red pepper relish and I’m hoping to make some yeasted corn rolls, but I might end up just cutting the corn off the cobs and freezing.
Whew.