This three day weekend was a perfect antidote for a busy first week back at school. It started with the potential to be just as hectic as the week prior, with house guests and a fairly major home improvement project, but it managed to be one of simple joys, many involving food and family, of course, starting with a Friday night recipe from Extending the Table.
Now I am not an end of the week cook. Usually as the week rolls by, the recipes become less about preparing a meal and more about heating something edible in a short amount of time. My evidence would be the Hamburger Helper we consumed with drooping eyes on Thursday night. So Friday I found myself wondering why I had planned to make Locro, an enchilada casserole from Paraguay, on my least productive night of the week. What I discovered is that the recipe was a delicious balance of 5 fresh ingredients , garnished with a little salt and cheese, and refreshing in its simplicity. I have to believe that the palate cleansing flavors, compared to the boxed concoction of the night before, set the tone for the rest of the weekend.
My job for most of the weekend was to keep the boys out of John’s way as he and his brother tiled our back porch/mud room. John ‘s mom, Donna, also came to spend time and help with the boys. She brought plenty of fun gifts that she doled out through the weekend to keep the boys busy with artwork or music. She also brought 6 dozen farm fresh eggs and 2 dozen ears of sweet corn. The boys were tired after their week of school and daycare, and both really just wanted to settle back into their home routine, happy for the Grandma time. We used almost a couple dozen eggs for breakfasts and ate corn Sunday night for our official Labor Day Weekend Grill Out. The highlight of the weekend for me was our backyard campfire. The boys roasted marshmallows for s’mores while we told silly stories of marshmallow boys and sang our favorite Sunday school songs.
Over the course of two days, the big guys laid the sub flooring and tile, and the little boys slept a lot. I also tried to keep up with the garden. I managed to stew tomatoes from the garden to freeze, threw together a loaf of bread and canned another batch of pickles between art projects. We ate our fill of fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, as well.
Today the project was finishing up. After saying good-bye to our guests this morning, Ian found a recipe in a school project that he wanted to try. It was an easy recipe for granola, so the whole family walked to the store, enjoying the sunshine, to pick up a few ingredients. While John put down the grout on the porch and Suki slept almost three hours(!), Ian and I mixed up the granola that we will be eating for breakfast this week.
So despite busyness around the house, the weekend was productive, full of fresh food and a newly tiled parch, which brought family for a fun time. It ended as it started, having dinner with my family, salads with veggies from the garden, and an easy mango whip dessert from India, ahm phul. Ian almost fell asleep at the table, but Suki drank his ahm phul in one giant gulpJ
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