Culinary adventures.

So, one of the things that I'm doing this summer is teaching myself how to cook. It's relatively safe; no one's died yet from food poisoning, and if I need help (and I need a lot of it) it's usually just a few feet away already helping me. Fridays have turned into designated cooking days, but it's been a lot of fun so far. A lot of extremely hard/hard to juggle prep, but the finished product usually looks great.

Last Friday I made a shepherd's pie recipe by Sunny Anderson (Food Network show host) and it was absolutely delicious. We'd tweak a few things in the recipe if we did it next time (you don't need ALL those spices in the ground beef, and you don't need heavy cream in the mashed potatoes), but it turned out delicious. J ate over that night.

I cooked a low-maintenance dinner last night, practically straight out of the freezer. Used to be a thing like that would freak me out, but didn't break a sweat this time. My dad was extremely thankful to come home at 9:30 to a plate of chicken, sweet potatoes, and green beans.

Tonight it was lasagna. And let me tell you, it was so, so much better than the frozen kind that you get. It was so much creamier, and sweeter because we used a basil-sweetened tomato sauce... We have leftovers. Too bad I can't send them electronically so that my friends can enjoy the fruits of my labors. My aunt and J both ate over tonight, and the recipe got glowing reviews. I also made these peanut butter brownie cupcakes, and they were delicious too. Also pretty easy; I'm a much better baker than cook, and cupcakes are easy and fun for me. I still have about 15, I'd bet... too bad I don't really have anyone to give them too. Guess I'll just have to eat them for breakfast 0:)

I finally upgraded: Today I got an iHome. While unpacking my stuff from college, I realized that I don't really listen to CDs any more. After all, every car has an aux jack that we use to plug in our iPods, and every CD I have is already in my computer/iPod. The only place I listened to CDs was in my room, and I still would make myself mixes to listen to. Why not just cut out that process? I'm really enjoying the upgrade. Now if only I can figure out how to turn the backlight down before I need to sleep tonight...

This is technically my last weekend off before I start working. My first shift at JCPenney is Monday night, and then I still have two more days of orientation. I still have plenty of time to relax, though, and really, what else was I planning on doing this summer except for working?

If you were in Dublin right now, you could tell that the Tournament was starting soon. That's right; Dublin is the host of one of the biggest golf tournaments on the PGA Tour. It's called the Memorial Tournament, because originally it was held on Memorial Day weekend, but I think today? might have been the day when Memorial Day was originally observed, or something like that. Tournament play doesn't start until next Thursday, but there's already been about a 300% increase in traffic. I can't pull out of my neighborhood, drivers are being erratic, and people are already swarming the course. This morning, while I was planting the front beds at our house, we could hear them testing the rain horns at the course, and we live about four miles away. Weekly renters are coming up, and it'll only get busier.

And of course, it's graduation party season again. I could have gone to one last week, but we decided not to go as a family. Tomorrow I'm going to meet one of my mom's close friend's daughters, since my mom talks about their family all the time. My brother, even though he's a junior, has about 20 parties to go to in the upcoming month. And graduation is tomorrow. On top of all the parties and all the Muirfield traffic (that's the golf course/neighborhood where the Tournament is held), there's also going to be traffic at the Schott (the Schottenstein Center, part of The Ohio State University's campus). Good grief.

Oh well. I sipped a cocktail tonight that tasted like blue Gummi Bears, so I'm happy. Ciao, all.

- Jen -