Packing, and treating, and etching...oh my!

Appetizing, isn't it?

This was dinner last night. (well, not for me, but for the family!)

More on that later.........

This weekend was a wild whirlwind of cooking, packing, treating, and other regular activities (laundry, grocery shopping,e tc) thrown in for good measure!

Our kitchen is being gutted today (although now they aren't starting until tomorrow).

So we spent a large part of the weekend clearing it all out - pots, pans, trays, racks, bowls, plates, cups, glasses, utensils, tupperware.....foils, phone books, pencils, all of it - ALL OF IT!....appliances (microwave, coffee pots, toaster, etc).

It all had to go. Where did it have to go?

Good question.

Some is in the garage, some in the dining room....I spent the last half of the weekend running up and down stairs and in and out of the garage trying to find what I needed to cook dinner. Fun.

This morning was fun too. Packing lunches, getting my breakfast...actually this morning went surprisingly smooth. yay.

We went treating on Halloween -so that blew, I mean, took...all evening/night - we left the house at 5pm and returned near 9pm.

We met at a friend's house, hung out a while, went out around the neighborhood,

stopped at another friend's house, hung out a while - walked some more...treating along the way.

It was a nice evening - despite some rain.

Tired treaters. :)

On Sunday I made this for dinner: a meathand ala NotMartha. :)

Never having made a meatloaf before - EVER. It was fun. I looked at a recipe in the Fanny Farmer (love that cookbook) and then altered it.

Our family likes a lot of sauce and we use tomato soup for that - so this is how it cooked.

This is how it looked out of the pan, on a tray, with the mashed potatoes all around it.

I also cooked a lasagna,

a sort of groundbeef hash,

some pasta, and hotdogs....oh, the mashed potatoes....

packaged all that for dinners (with the exception of the meathand and potatoes) for the next couple of weeks while I kitchen is being redone.

Also made my first 'nut mylk' - from almonds.

YAY!

That was fun.

I first soaked some almonds - maybe 2 cups, but probably less - than ground them, then strained through cheesecloth.....added more water, ground again, strained again. I was really surprised with how much it made! And now I literally have nut 'powder' too - so I can make something with that. Not sure what - but something!

I really need to purchase a better blender/processor and a dehydrator. I tried to make a squash 'soup' -- umm, ewww, no. It was not creamy AT ALL. It was grainy and nasty and I threw it out. :(

Sunday evening we were blessed with a lovely little viola recital. :)

It was a crazy weekend!!!!!!!

I'm so tired and its only Monday! lol

I still have lots to share from the retreat - here are some etched pieces. We did some electro-etching - these are sterling and they look FABULOUS! No 'bite' marks...just a lovely clean DEEP etch. YAY!

I had never electro-etched before (and I still can't say that I have, as I only observed...) and I was really surprised at how quick and easy - and no nasty chemicals. I still have my ferric chloride and ferric nitrate and will still use them, but will be transitioning to an electro-etch model soon.

More on that later!

~Janice