Peoria, AZ
Late in the day yesterday, things turned windy. Coupled with a brush fire about 45 miles away, we were treated to an interesting sky. Nothing like the haboobs of the summer monsoon season, but interesting nonetheless.
Later in the week, things settled back into a “normal” groove. Being retirees, we hit the grocery stores on Wednesday (first Wednesday of the month) to take advantage of the 10% “senior discount”. We did pretty well for amateurs at this whole “thrifty” thing, once again making the freezer an exercise in the art of vacuum sealing and precise packing. If we were more into the whole meal planning thing, we’d probably be able to shop once a month and save even more, but where’s the fun in that?
We do miss having the auxiliary freezer out in the garage. It bit the dust over the summer, failing to cool at all when plugged in in November. It went the way of all good things when the City had its “bulky waste pickup” in February. We’ve held off on a replacement since we’ve made it this far through our visit here, but we’ll probably pull the trigger on a small standalone freezer as soon as we get back in the fall.
Thursday I baked bread and Friday, well, I baked bread. The former was a bread machine batch and the latter a large amount of ciabatta. I put up the ciabatta starter last week, so it was ready to go. It takes pretty much all day to create ciabatta with the initial mixing, first and second rises, and eventually the baking, but it’s well worth it. The dough recipe is enough for two large loaves and about a dozen rolls. Mmmm...
Friday was also “test kitchen day”. I tried a new recipe for Lamb Bolognese, plus took a shot at making fresh pasta from scratch. The sauce came out reasonably well, although we’ll probably doctor it up a bit the next time around, adding more tomato product and less of a “pinch” of pepper flakes. The pasta required a little experimentation to get the semolina-all purpose ratio right, adjust for the dry climate here, and get the kneading down. I’m a little worried about the Kitchen-Aid mixer, since it didn’t knead well, but I gotta say that the pasta roller is the bomb! I made some tagliatelle, linguine, and fettuccine. Some needed to be rolled thinner, but the pups didn’t seem to mind.
Yesterday was Geri’s turn in the kitchen. Yes, we have enough experience to know that our kitchen is only large enough for one cook at a time. It’s not that we bother each other; it’s just designed for one. I spent the afternoon over at the coach, puttering around a bit and fine-tuning my list of “things to do before we hit the road”.
Anyway, she made a recipe she found online (as opposed to TV’s Food Network or Cooking Channel for a change) for Taco Pizza. We have several recipes that substitute “Mexican” ingredients in traditional formats (Lasagna, Shepard’s Pie), and this was no different. In reviewing it later, we concluded that it was designed for rookie cooks, though, substituting store-bought rolls flattened out in place of real pizza dough. Since she’s the queen of homemade pizza, we’ll try it again with “real” dough. It did go quite nicely with a pitcher of “George-a-ritas”, though.
Today, we relaxed for the most part, enjoying another beautiful day in the desert. We slept in (actually even the pups slept late), Geri made me a fantastic Sunday Brunch this morning, enough to hold us through the whole day. Some time in the study, a little napski on the patio in the afternoon, good selections from iTunes through the speakers all day; what more could you ask for?
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