I started my Saturday by making a loaf of banana bread. I actually subbed half the flour for oat flour by grinding some rolled oats in my food processor. I like this recipe because there's no eggs, so I don't worry quite as much if it's slightly undercooked. Sometimes breads give me trouble because I tend to worry that it's not cooked enough and over cook it. The honey in this recipe makes the bread kind of chewy too, which I like.
I spent most of the morning engrossed in my Kindle book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, but finally put the book down and got out around noon and to take Clyde for a walk. I think the trees are confused about the warm weather too- check it out, the cherry blossoms are already out!
We walked for about 45 minutes. It was actually warmer than I thought it would be and I was hot in my yoga pants and fleece vest.
I came home and decided that having a salad on the deck sounded great so that I could continue enjoying the weather. I found this one, an apple, walnut, goat cheese salad, on Pinterest and basically made it the same except using spinach and green leaf lettuce as my base.. I've been eating a lot of walnuts as I heard they're good for fertility.
This time I put shorts on, before heading out to the deck to eat.
Ahhh, I'm so white! This made my next task incredibly unpleasant: bathing suit shopping...
Greg and I are taking a trip in a couple weeks and am in need of some new bathing suits. Target actually has bathing suits out already, so I headed there to take a look. Biggest gripe? You can only take 6 items at a time into their dressing room, which adds up quick when you have bathing suit tops and bottoms. I had to go in twice to try everything I wanted to try on. I hate that! They did have some cute suits though, so I got two tops and three different bottoms.
I'm not sure if I should be wearing bikinis anymore, but I couldn't find anything else I liked and you can't beat the price, I think each piece was around $15. I really want to get a tankini, but I have a really short torso, so they always come down past the top of my bottoms, which is silly looking. The one piece suits weren't looking too promising either. Anyway, I'm just glad that's over with.
On the way home I drove with the sunroof open. Still pretty warm!
Shortly after I got home, some rain came through, and I suddenly wanted soup for dinner. I made soup using these beans we got at Costco recently.
You boil one cup in three cups of liquid for 5 minutes, then let them sit for 10 minutes and can use them any way you want. I have a good recipe for split pea soup, so I decided to try and use the beans in that recipe.
Pea Soup
Cook time 4-4.5 hours
1 lb bag of dried split peas
2 quarts water
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon of pepper
1/8 teaspoon of garlic powder (I used minced garlic)
1/8 teaspoon cumin
1/8 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon dill
1/2 teaspoon rosemary
1 chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped carrot
2 stalks of celery, chopped
Boil peas in water 2 minutes. Turn off head and keep covered an hour. Add seasonings and simmer 2 hours, add vegetables, then cook for another hour.
Since I didn't have 4 hours and I was hoping these beans would cook faster, I cooked the beans as directed (5 minutes, then sit for 10), I just sauteed the onions and carrot til softened, added the seasonings, then put them in the pot with the seasonings and cooked it all together for another 40 minutes or so, then used my immersion blender to try to puree it.
Honestly, it probably needed more cooking time, but I was hungry and it was decent this way, the beans just weren't as soft as they might be if they were cooked longer. I love the seasonings in this soup.
I spent a quiet night in with this pup.
We watched the movie Up, which I hadn't seen. So cute!
I think it's going to rain today, but I'm hoping not, because I have some fun stuff planned for the afternoon. More on that next time!
