Yesterday was a busy day

It was supposed to rain all day yesterday. It was hot and muggy, and the entire Ottawa area was under a severe thunderstorm warning (which didn't end up even starting until after 9:30 at night.)

Having had a busy day with the kids the previous day, and taking into account the weather, I decided to spend my day puttering around my kitchen while the kids played in the house. I took alot of pictures of things I played with, and some of it was just play.

Instead of doing my usual post of, "I decided to try this recipe out, here is the picture, here is how it went," I'm going to post a bunch of the pictures from yesterday, maybe even a recipe, with little blurgs about them.

Enjoy!



Peach and blueberry oat muffins. (From the 2004 Milk Calendar)

1 1/2 cups milk
1 1/4 cup quick cooking rolled oats
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 egg
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp grated lemon rind
1 1/2 cups chopped resh, frozen or drained canned peaches (I didn't have enough for 1 cup so added wild blueberries in for the difference)

Prehead oven to 400F. Lightly butter or spray non stick muffin pans. In bowl, combine milk and oats, letting stand for 5 minutes. In large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and nutmet. Whisk egg, borwn sugar, butter, vanilla and lemon rind into oat mixture. Pour over dry ingredients and sprinkle with peaches (and blueberries). Stir just until moistened. Spoon into prepared muffin pan. Bake for about 30 minutes or until tops are golden brown and firm to the touch. Let cool.

Makes 12 muffins.

Chopped garlic.

"Yummus" hummus with steamed green beans. (Recipe for "yummus" from Eat, Shrink and be Merry, by Greta and Janet Podleski.)

Olive oil with drops of balsamic vinegar.

More olive oil play.

Banana cream pie

I made this using the left over pie dough I had from the lemon meringue pie a few days ago. I sliced bananas into the bottom of the cooled shell, covered the bananas with custard made using a custard mix, then topped the custard with freshly whipped cream. Yummy!