Doings of the weekend

This post is a week late because I wrote it all, then forgot to hit post. Therefore the weekend mentioned in the title was last-last weekend.

The weather was cool enough to encourage oven use. The freezer & the pantry were decently stocked with ingredients. And my mental state was flaky enough to encourage distraction.

I seriously gravitate to comfort cooking when I'm stressed. So.

Roasted pork loin with potatoes, carrots & onions happened.

Also milk rolls (Like milk bread, only rolls instead of loaf, because the baking tolerances are much more forgiving.) Also cucumber salad. And raspberry jello, because I am a child and like my weird comfort foods.

Oh, wait. and also shortbread cookies.

Plus a gallon of tomatoes reduced to a quart of amazing delicious sauce. That's separate, though, because that was really just making ingredients for some future Kitchen magic session.

As a side note, I gotta say I am pleased that my "I hate the steamy, burny hell that is blanching tomatoes, there's got to be a better way" solution worked out great.

(The professional, "I have bushels of 'matoes" solution is "buy an effing food mill," but I'm not there yet. For the few gallons of tomatoes I get over the season, it's easy enough to halve, deseed them while watching TV, then freeze them.

Once thawed, the skins slide right off, leaving tomatoes magically ready to be rendered into deliciousness.  No burned fingers, no steamed face, no water all over the counter, no cursing the lack of sufficient ice.

Happy kitchen magician, me.

-------

Related (in my mind) addendum to share:

I hate fitted sheets for many, petty reasons. One of big biggest beefs? It's nearly impossible to fit them correctly the first time because the elastic obscures the lengths of the side. I remembered I own several Sharpie laundry markers.  Now all my fitted sheets are labeled on the center of the  short end, right down on the edge that gets buried underneath the mattress anyhow. "bottom center."

I feel so very adulty now.