My Week Off

(I started this post on Sunday, but put it on hold while I worked out my picture problems.  I've got a partial solution, but I don't think I'm happy with it for the long term.  Flickr, it turns out, sort of works, but it's a bit complicated.  Sigh.)

Tonight is the last bit of my week off of work.  Tomorrow it's back at it.  I'm okay with that.  I'm looking forward to seeing the kids and hearing how their breaks went.  I'll miss spending the time with Davan, though.  Of course, I still get to see a lot of her, but I know she doesn't always feel that, which is really the only part of working that makes me regret taking the job.  Now, mind you, I'd like it even better if it were only Monday through Thursday and I never had to work a day camp, but one can't have everything.

For my week off, Davan and I decided to do a lot of cooking together.  And boy, did we.  We started on Monday (the weekend was pretty normal with rehearsals and classes and such).

That evening we made oven baked onion rings, spicy buffalo tempeh wings and coleslaw.

 All three of us ended up working on the onion rings in an assembly line fashion.  Davan dipped in the liquid, I covered them in bread crumbs and Anthony did the spacial work.

We had fun making it.

Ranger spent pretty much the whole time we were cooking the whole week just waiting to be of service.

We were pleased with the results.

Tuesday, Davan had stuff at Do Jump in the evening and didn't help me cook.  We had my FIL over for dinner, though, and, as he's been getting soup for several visits now, I wanted to make something more interesting for him.  I made roasted fingerling potatoes, roasted broccoli and white bean sausages.  That was yummy, too.

Wednesday we did a sort of dinch thing (what we can a combination between lunch and dinner, like brunch is a breakfast/lunch thing) because that worked out best for our schedule.  That evening was Chinese food night.

We had hosin mustard tofu:

Orange broccoli (not our favorite):

And potato scallion pancakes:

Another yummy meal.  The tofu was eaten in lettuce bundles, which was delish.

On Thanksgiving we, of course, cooked again.  However, we were going over to my MIL's for Thanksgiving and didn't want to cook a whole meal for ourselves only to pack it all up, so we decided on taking just one thing - a sweet potato and tempeh dish we like.  But, then, Davan asked for roasted broccoli, as well, so we did that, too.  Then my MIL asked if we'd bring rolls.  We ended up deciding to buy them.  Then we added an apple crisp to the mix.  So, yeah, it was another big cooking day, but no pictures were taken.

We did a Thanksgiving feast for ourselves on Friday so we could eat it at home at our leisure.  It was our biggest cooking day of the week.  Luckily, we were still enjoying it and getting along in our tiny kitchen.

We made two pies.

(and sharp readers will have noticed that something changed between Wednesday's cooking and Friday's cooking)

Cherry and pumpkin.

Apple had been in the mix when we were picking and is why we ended up taking an apple crisp on Thursday.

Ranger, once again, spent the day hopeful.

Davan had her moments, as well.

Anthony worked on other projects.

But did help with dishes from time to time.

The violia moment:

In addition to the pie, on the menu was homemade oatmeal rolls, garlicy green beans, smokey kale, mashed potatoes and smoky almond gravy, polenta stuffing and "tasty-fu."

Finally ready to eat:

It was our best meal yet.  We made tons, too, so we got to enjoy leftovers for a couple of days.  After Saturday, that is, because Saturday was a different event all together.