Another installment of...Look what I did this week!

It's Sunday night, and I remembered, so it's time for another (non-chronological) installment of (drumroll, please...)

(1) I actually stuck to my resolution and picked another cookbook to cook from this week. This time I cheated a smidge and picked one I know I like, but from which I've still only cooked a couple things. This week's winner is:

Sorry about the crappy picture. I grabbed it from a website and am too lazy to get a better one.

I cooked lentil soup, a cheese souffle, and country captain (which is a chicken curry dish). They were all excellent. I'd make any of them again. I only took pics of the souffle, though, because lentil soup always looks like dog food no matter how good it tastes, and I just forgot on country captain night.

I'm so pretty!

I deflated. I guess that's what we souffles do. Wah wah.

(2) On Wednesday, I took Asher to Mommy & Me Day at Raley Field (which, for those of you not from these parts, is where the Rivercats play.) (The Rivercats, for those of you again, are the Oakland A's AAA minor league team.) He was kind of in a funk, which is too bad, since he usually loves this event, but we still managed to have fun.

(3) At M&M day, we scored a free lawn seat for today's Rivercats game, so we went (I'm a sucker for free). We love going to the games and camping out in the lawn. The weather was lovely, so lovely that I took a nap on our blanket and missed half an inning (hey, I'm pregnant, ok?). The only thing that rained on our parade was that security wouldn't let us play ball on the lawn, which was ok last year but is apparently ix-nayed this year.

My husband making his "whatever, guy" face right after the security guard pooped on his game of ball with Ash. Is it bad that I think he looks hot when annoyed?

After the game, the kids got to run the bases. I didn't think Ash would do it since parents weren't allowed on the field, but he did. I was very proud of him.

He's looks so little on that big ol' field.

Crossing home

(5) Hubby & I seem to have an affinity for buying houses with useless fruit trees, the kind that bear truckloads of fruit you'd only want to eat in small quantities, if at all. Lemons, limes, oranges? No. Figs and persimmons? That's what our last house had. The current house has kumquats. Don't get me wrong, I actually quite like kumquats, but they're like sourpatch kids: you need to limit your intake unless you want your tongue to feel like it's covered in battery acid. And unfortunately, the tree bears all its fruit at once, so it's hard to space out your kumquat consumption. This is just what I didn't let fall on the ground this year:

This container is bigger than your average shoebox. Mr. Squirrel approves.

I did learn an interesting, if totally impractical fun fact while harvesting: the number of kumquats I can fit in my sports bra is at least 19. (I learned this at one point when I had a handful of fruit and realized my basket was just out of reach, so I improvised.) I also harvested the peas I grew. The peas have already been blanched and frozen. The kumquats are waiting to be made into marmalade and candied in wine. Hopefully I'll be posting pics of that in a few days.

(6) I think I've mentioned here before that we have a great yard with a lot of potential that just needs love. Yesterday, hubby and I combined to put 10 total (wo)man hours of love in the backyard. I actually kind of adore yard work. Hubby hates it. We (he) amended the soil, worked in the amendments by hand (because we can't till due to tree root situations), dug holes in our hard clay soil, planted a bunch of new plants, and transplanted a bunch of others. I looks soooo much better now.

 

Hopefully by next year this will be all filled in and lush looking. We really only need to plant one more azalea and wait. Oh, and do about 20 more feet of refurbing that rock river, mulch around the trees, weed the lawn... And then there's all the veggie garden stuff. Hmmm.

See you on the flip side.