What’s been happening???

I am so glad the the run-off election here in Georgia is over as the 15+ automated political calls I was receiving each day was ticking me off big time!

On Tuesday, Tim our gardener stopped over to work in the yard and gave me sad news.  He and his family are moving to Texas and they’re leaving this Friday!!  We all love Tim and will miss him, as will our yard.  If anyone locally knows of a great gardener, please let me know.  Thanks.

Maisie has her first gymnastics competition a week from Saturday and I'm hoping that she loves performing, has a great time and that she and her team do well.  Maisie is super excited to see and receive her new team leotard and warm-ups, she's all about how sparkly and cute she'll look.  If anyone wants to come to watch the meet and to support Maisie and her teammates, send me an email and I'll forward the information to you.

From our garden we are currently harvesting butternut squash (we pulled 50 yesterday!), pumpkins, gala melons, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, basil, eggplant, string beans, watermelon and figs from Steve's tree.  I thought that the garden would save us a lot on our grocery bill and while it has, it has also ended up costing a lot too.  I have been freezing a lot of the vegetables for use this winter and I quickly ran out of space so I purchased a new freezer which was delivered today! 

Here’s Maisie just before leaving for practice in front of the new freezer.

Honestly we have needed a big freezer for a while because I love to cook in bulk and freeze for use later and when we were in Utah helping Tiffany stock her freezer for fall it motivated me to do the same for us.  Having already prepared, healthy, homemade meals are especially wonderful on the nights that Maisie has gymnastics practice as we don't get home until just after 7PM and being able to get dinner on the table in just minutes is a great thing! 

Ann (K & A’s Mom) and I were talking today that we haven’t done any real cooking days in a while and we’re both ready to start and now that I have so much freezer space I’m excited to get cooking again.  I’ve already made a huge batch of Bolognese sauce which should last us though the winter, if not longer as well as both chicken and oxtail stock.  Next on my list to get made and into the freezer are some of our favorites, some of which are now Tiffany’s favorites too as they’re in her freezer too.  Moussaka, Curried Shepherd’s Pie, Hearty Beef Curry and  Cioppino.  Also on the list are Zucchini & Spinach Lasagna, Red Curry Soup, Creamy Tomato Soup Florentine, Roasted & Curried Veggie Soup and Mulligatawny Soup…we love our soups! 

For day to day food recently I haven’t done a lot of cooking.  Both Eammon and I haven’t been feeling 100% and between that and our near 100 degree weather, neither of us has wanted heavy meals.  Two things that I have been eating a lot of though are my Watermelon Tomato Gazpacho and my homemade Labneh.  I also made a batch of sugar-free fig refrigerator jam which I have been mixing into the Labneh which is just freaking awesome and I’ve been eating it every.single.night. 

Tomorrow is Maisie’s school open house and she’s super excited so I guess that I should get to bed because she’ll but up bright and early anxious to go so she’ll have me up early too.