Leisure Reading Recipes

March Musings

Just a bit of this and that to share today, so I’m calling this post March Musings.  This has been one crazy weather month with more lion than lamb so our activities are all over the place.

Baking Day

No surprise, I like to keep a stock of homemade biscuits and oatmeal cookies in the freezer for the horrible hungries.  Nothing beats these two when they are homemade.  I make the cookies gluten free and hub pulls them out of the freezer for breakfast every morning and says he’s eating oatmeal.

A cold and rainy day lends itself to baking (I was actually thinking of drinking endless cups of tea and reading, but that didn’t sound particularly productive) so I held my breath and took the plunge into destroying my kitchen and whipping everything up at once.

I don’t know why I get such a kick out of posting destroyed kitchen photos.

Friends

DF Julie was in town and flying out Monday morning.  I drove downtown to meet her for breakfast before her flight.  It was just wonderful seeing her in person with her beautiful, happy face.

I got a nice surprise coming home from the gym this week to see DF Connie and her friend Jan walking past our house admiring our front yard.  We got a chance to catch up for a few minutes before they continued on.

Boasting about landscaping is not an Arizona thing like in many other places where lush lawns and flower beds claim bragging rights.

So, I thought, wow, it’s not often anyone compliments me on our yard, but with all the rain this year, our Penstemon is huge and beautiful.  If you look closely you’ll see a hummingbird getting a bit o’ breakfast.

This is as close as bragging about our yard as you’ll get from me.

What I’m Eating

Nothing new on the menu here this week.  For myself, I took some of my delish eggplant “meatballs” out of the freezer and covered them with Rao’s marinara.  Do you use Rao’s?  We like it the best of all jarred sauces since Trader Joe’s no longer carries the bomb marinara.

It’s pricey, so we stock up when it goes on sale at Costco.

Speaking of Costco, their ciabatta is so good, so I keep a bag of that in the freezer and just a few minutes toasting on the air fryer setting makes a perfect crunchy roll to sop up that extra sauce.

For hub, I put on a crock pot of beef and bean chili.  Really, making chili in March in Phoenix.  Comfort food is still on the menu here.

What I’m Reading

Sister Susie is heading to Japan this month so she texted sister Monique and me to ask for some book recommendations for the long plane ride.  OMG.  That was like a crack fest!  The two of us just fed off each other thinking and advising on old and new favorites.

I was reserving and loading books off the library site lickety split.  New for me and recommended by Monique (and BTW, Susie saw the series it was made into) is the Wayward Pines Trilogy by Blake Crouch.  The first book, Pines, was available on Kindle, so I loaded it and read it.  In one day.  I know!

The author was inspired by the old TV show Twin Peaks.

I cannot beat this description from Amazon:

Pines is at once a brilliant mystery tale and the first step into a genre-bending saga of suspense, science fiction, and horror.”

Once you get hooked into the story, you won’t be able to put it down.

Wrap Up

What’s on the horizon for your weekend?  I don’t think we have anything on the schedule, but I’m always open to something new!