...9.24...Delicious Vegan Food we ate...

...it was the Man's birthday...

...and instead of a cake...he wanted brownies with walnuts...

...and I was happy to oblige...

...and for dinner...delicious Mexican restaurant fare...I didn't even make him wear the hat...haha...

...Happy Birthday to the Man!

~Have a lovely day!

...9.11...Happy Birthday Daddy...

Happy Birthday to Daddy...he would have been 87 years old today...R.I.P. ...this is a paper copy of a canvas photo from the wall at Mom's..I remember this photo shoot well because the photographer was hilarious and we were all laughing so hard and it was hard to even smile normally for the photo...also is Olan Mills still a thing?...

~Have a lovely day!

...9.2...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...y'all may remember this notebook...from when it was a Bible Journal from back when I was teaching a Confirmation Class...(of course there's a whole post about it)...I wasn't using it as a journal anymore and I thought it was already pink and cute...

...all I did was peel off the center label and replace it with a 'cookbook' one...

...and then I got a set of white dividers...but I wanted cute little tabs for each section...so I printed those out on cardstock...

...and covered them with tape for some extra reinforcement...

...cut them out like tabs...

...and glued them to the dividers...

...the cookbook sections now are:
Sassy Salads
Snazzy Snacks
Scrumptious Soups
Coveted Casseroles
Enlightened Entrées
Swanky Sides
and Delectable Desserts

...I had made a tab for Vivacious Vegetables...but I didn't have room for it...and I figured the sides one would cover most vegetables...so I left it out...

...and then I found a cute kid's recipe page online...it even has a section for drawing the completed recipe...and Big Sissie loves to draw...so I thought it would be perfect for her...and then I filled out at least one recipe sheet for each section to get her started on her collection...

...Mom's Hashbrown Casserole is in there...so are the Brownie Bites that I make all the time...and the chocolate Chip cookies that Our Airman had memorized when he was little...he used to make them when he got home from school in the afternoon...and then eat half the dough...because they're vegan that's ok...and then we'd bake the 3 or 4 cookies that were left...haha...

...and then I'd acquired a bunch of baking mixes and the fixings for a pumpkin pie...so I packed all of those in a standard postal box and sent them on their way...

...what's in your workbasket this week?...

~Have a lovely day!

...08.26...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...Big Sissie had asked Grandmommy for a 'real' cooking set...not a toy one...

...so over the last couple of months...I've been gathering proper cooking tools for her kit...y'all have already seen the pink tote...

...but it was filled with...

...Cookie cutters, one with animals, and one with kind of classic shapes…
...A full-size rolling pin…not a toy...
...A pastry brush, measuring spoons and cups (rainbow coloured of course), a whisk, a scoop, a silicone slotted spoon, a pizza cutter, a spatula for mixing and a spatula for cookies and things…
...and y'all have already seen the pink Pottery Barn mixing bowls...

...and then to finish out the kit...I included a cute apron...

...it was an adult sized one from the thrift store...so I found an online pattern for a child-sized apron...and cut it down to size...

...I think it would probably have been easier to just make a child-sized apron as it was a lot of trouble to unpick the seams and reattach the ties...but this one still turned out super cute...

...I’m also gonna send a separate box with a bunch of baking mixes, brownies, cookies, pancakes, pizza, sprinkles, all of those things that you would need for baking, but I’ll send those separate from the tool kit...

...oh...and a cookbook...more on that one in a bit...

...what's in your workbasket this week?...

~Have a lovely day!

...8.21...Friday Update...

...I planted my new 'second crop' of cucumbers and squash in the newly tilled garden...

...and then I thought I'd show you all of the green beans that I picked from the garden this week...we've had some rain...and they've been blooming like crazy...

...and obviously making a lot of beans...

...I often 'miss' one or two and get a shrivled up brown one...but I'll just let it finish drying and then I'll pop the seeds out of it for next year...these are heirloom beans so you can just save the seeds...

...and another day's pickings...they're not always this prolific...sometimes I only get a handful...but there'll be a big pot of beans cooking on the porch this weekend for sure...

...and we're still getting a steady supply of cukes as well...

...I'll post more about it in a little bit...but I had to get Big Sissie's main birthday present in the mail...she wanted a 'real' cooking set...not a toy one...so over the last couple of month's I've been collecting all that gear...Mom had given me the pink lidded tote to put everything in the last time I was up there for a visit...

...all wrapped up...and since it won't fit into a flat rate postal box...it's time to get it into the mail...so it can have a full month to get there...

...and since it's an odd size...I had to fabricate a box for it...and I got these two pretty bright yellow boxes at Aldi and cut them up to fit the birthday wrapped tote perfectly...

...blacked out the writing on the box and taped it all up and sent it on it's way...

~Have a lovely day!

...7.31...Friday Update...the Birthday edition...

...so many birthday gifties...you've already seen the sweet chocolates my sissie sent...I am very lucky...

...a new set of kitchen towels and potholders in a nice crisp blue and white...

...I needed a new pair of walking shoes...and I could no longer get the style/number of New Balance trail shoes that I had always gotten...

...these are similar just with a different #...

...and from Our Airman...an adorable little hand crocheted flower...did you know that while knitting can be done by machine...crochet cannot...

...it's so sweet...I'll put it on my nightstand so I can see it first thing every morning...

...and my old airpods had sort of died...and by died I mean that they would only stay charged for about 5 minutes...so pretty much useless...and they never picked up my voice very well with the microphone on the earpiece...I'm pretty soft-spoken and people would always say they couldn't hear me when I tried to use them...so the Man got me these Beats ones...

...I'm sure he meticulously researched them...they're still wireless so I won't be tethered to the phone but they have microphones that sit closer to the front so hopefully I'll be able to use them to talk as I don't use my phone for listening very much...

...and a couple of things all the way from Japan...

...a traditional tofu cutter...

...of course I've tried it out...you set the cutter in place and press the tofu down through it...

...and you've got nice evenly sliced tofu...

...and then you just pull the top piece and the tofu is forced through another cutter on the front...

...and you're left with perfectly cubed tofu...ideal for the air fryer...

...and I actually asked for this saw...it's got two different sets of teeth...fine and course...it'll come in very handy...

~Have a lovely day!

...7.30...Delicious Vegan Food we ate...the Birthday edition...

...y'all have already seen the pre-birthday dinner at the Mexican restaurant on the weekend...and you knew that the Man had added a few specific things to the grocery list...because he was going to make me a special birthday dinner...

...since it was supposed to be a surprise (although I knew the ingredients - haha)...I asked him to take a few photos for y'all...the zucchini is from our garden and the peppers and eggplant are from Saturday's shopping...

...I'm pretty sure this is a sofritto of onions, carrots and celery...in olive oil...

...the rigatoni we got at Aldi...

...then it looks like he added all the veg to the pot...

...and then a bunch of tomato...he always uses the organic Cento San Marzano tomatoes in his sauces...and it looks like there's oregano there too...

...pretty sure the noodles were cooked separately and then added to the ragu...

...crunchy bread and a generous sprinkling of my almond parmesan...and a salad on the side...

...it was a delicious birthday dinner...

...what delicious food have you been eating lately?

~Have a lovely day!

...5.27...W.I.P. Wednesday...

...y'all have already seen the athletic sock update in my lap in the car...but I had made Sissie a new dishcloth...just using the leftover yarn from those tan socks I'd made a couple of years ago and had to buy a whole skein of yarn to finish them...so it's kind-of an odd colour for a dishcloth...

...and I found a nice hefty mug with her initial on it...and got out the traveling card...

...what's in your workbasket this week?...

~Have a lovely day!