snowy white owl bowl
Originally uploaded by meliass.

My sister Tasha started making birds for her pottery. They’re fantastic. She gave me this white owl as I was ooohing and aahing over the bird bowls and she’d just so happened to make a white one that looks like Hedwig.

Thanks to the boyfriend for deciding the owl’s home should be near my Harry Potter books.

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Cherry Pie less 2 slices
Originally uploaded by meliass.

I was off on Sunday. I think this is the first Sunday I’ve had off this year excluding Sundays when I was on vacation. It was nice. I slept until 10 (which is teetering on “sleeping in late” for me these days) or so and kind of lazed about all afternoon. Then (because I promised the boyfriend I would) I baked this pie and made a yummy soup.

I hadn’t made pie crust in at least several years. I was a little afraid I’d forgotten how to do it well. I hadn’t. I looked up the standard Crisco recipe and it turned out great. As it always has. When I was young and made pie dough for the first time, my mom got mad at me because it turned out perfect the first time. Apparently making pie dough wasn’t supposed to be easy. Oops.

Anyway, the crust was good. So was the rest of the pie. I used more of the jarred Morello cherries from Trader Joe’s for the filling. I also added a liberal amount of amaretto to the cherries. This was a good idea. A very good idea. I’m yet to make a bad dessert with liquor in it. The boyfriend also pointed out that using real liquor is way more cost effective than using flavored extracts. The entire 750 mL bottle of Amaretto might have cost $7. A tiny bottle of good almond extract would cost nearly the same thing. Liquor isn’t just yummy…it’s a better deal for my baking needs.

The crumb topping is my now standard oatmeal crumb topping with nuts. This time I used almonds. Partially because of the amaretto and partially because I had a fair amount of almonds in my pantry.

The pie was good. Oops, it still is good…I’ve got one slice left and I think I’ll have to eat it tonight.

So, back to my nice Sunday. I made the pie and the soup. The soup was also very good. The boyfriend had obtained the recipe from his boss and he thought it sounded like something I’d love because sausage is the main ingredient. He was right. It was good. And very easy to make.

Sunday was also the first day off I’ve had with the boyfriend since July excluding the 2 times we went camping. It was nice to have an entire lazy day with him.

Not too much interesting to report…I’ve fallen into a bit of a routine of waking up at a semi-decent hour, going to work, doing schoolwork and spending a large portion of my free time with the boyfriend. I also go to bed at a semi-decent hour most nights. No more staying up until 3 am every night for me. I kind of like this new routine and all of the activity in my life. I broke down and bought a planner for the first time in at least 10 years. I needed it to keep track of all the stuff I’ve got to do. It’s nice to be busy doing things I want to do for the first time in a while.

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