Bargain hunter

Steve has the best luck when it comes to incredible finds at the local Goodwill. He regularly finds name-brand, expensive merino wool shirts (in his size!), Patagonia and Pendelton button down shirts, Marmot t-shirts, and other good deals, all in near-new condition. Well, the other day he found this cookbook!

 

It's the Ovens of Brittany Cookbook - from the Ovens of Brittany restaurant in Madison, WI. The restaurant closed years ago - either while I was a student there or shortly after. It's funny that he found their cookbook all the way out here. I haven't made anything from it yet, but there's a few recipes I'd like to try...they were known for their pastries and baked goods, and there's several in the book that sound good.

Feels like spring!

Sorry for the lack of pictures lately. I'm coming up against a deadline for school so it's been hard to do anything else. This weekend, though, the weather is gorgeous and we've been busy!

Friday night we picked up some herb starters and lettuce and basil seeds, then Saturday afternoon I took a break from writing to plant them. It was in the 60s outside, and fabulously sunny.  We now have pots of thai basil, italian basil, rosemary, lavender, dill, oregano, thyme, mint, mixed lettuce, and our California buckeye tree that we planted this winter from a seed and is now almost 3 feet tall.  Here's what some of them look like on our front porch, which is pretty much the only place we get sun that's 'our' space at the condo:

A friend recently gave us some of their sourdough stater that they've had going for more than 10 years. I've never worked with sourdough before, but was excited to try. We had friends over last weekend for dinner, so I made two loaves of sourdough bread (rustic rounds) to go with dinner and followed a recipe from a good baking book...and they turned out great! We sent the leftovers home with out guests. Then this weekend I had to feed the starter again, and it turns out I hate throwing away the extra, so I made sourdough-cornmeal waffles on Friday morning (I don't work Fridays, I do school work, so I can do crazy things like make waffles). Then Saturday I had a second container of starter left over from last weekend, so I improvised a foccacia-like bread, with garlic and rosemary inside and asiago and smoked sea salt on top. It was the best bread I've ever made!  We dunked it in good balsamic vinegar mixed with olive oil. I think I'll use some today to make us a ham and cheese panini.

Happy Easter everyone!