Happy Fourth!

Afternoon everyone. Things here are hot, but everything is going well. It is just hubby and I today. My side of the family almost came over but when they saw the weather report (hot with a chance of t-storms later) they decided to wait until later. We are going over there next weekend for my niece's birthday anyway so it's not a big thing. Mom has been itching to pull weeds in my flowerbeds and who am I to stop her? She's pretty disappointed though in not being able to do that yet. I told her I'll save them for her. I can't pull a lot of weeds, the bending over and stuff doesn't sit well with my liver the next day for some reason.

I made hubby's favorite breakfast for him this morning. I found thin asparagus at the POG, so I broiled it and put it on homemade bread that I had toasted with soft yolk "fried" eggs on top and some Parmesan cheese on top. Sprinkled with some salt and pepper and it's quite heavenly. I don't even like soft yolks, but when it mixes with the melted Parm it makes a nice sauce that the bread soaks up. I don't even need ketchup, a requisite for me for almost any egg dish.

I realized I forgot to buy beer for the brats. :( Oh well - It's been so long since I've bought beer that it's just fallen off my radar. I do have a bottle of Woodchuck Granny Smith Hard Cider, but I don't think that will quite work. At least I have peppers and onions, if I had forgotten that I would have just had to go with something else entirely!

Hubby bought me Jamie Oliver's last two cookbooks for my birthday, and I've been enjoying the food P0rn from them. I've decided I'm going to make Cauliflower Risotto next week. It's got a spicy breadcrumb topping ontop that sounds great (chilies and anchovies) that finishes it. And he says that you don't have to stir risotto all the time - "just a quick stir every couple of minutes" [from his Italy book] and in his Cook book he gives directions to make it ahead of time and then how to finish it a couple of days later.

Last night was supposed to be the pork cube whatever but I did something different. Hubby got off work early (yay!) and I ended up fixing some frozen cheese ravioli with some pesto (made from my basil from last year) and I had 3 slices of Rosemary Olive Oil bread to serve with it that we used to soak up any pesto that was on our plates. YUMMY! I really need to use pesto more often. I forget how much I love that stuff. I must admit I used a bit too much of it (and the oil) because I was moving what I had from the quart jar to a smaller jar (2 cup) since we had used most of it. I pour a layer of olive oil on top to help keep it fresh, and I didn't want to mix that oil in the moving, so I just took that (it was hard from being in the fridge) and some pesto underneath for the pasta and then transferred the rest to the new jar and topped with a new layer of olive oil. When I made the pesto I didn't use cheese so I could do what I wanted to with it when I used it it. I made sure to use a bit of Parmesan when I tossed it with the hot cooked pasta. Yummy!