"Loafing" day at home

I've been back home since last Monday evening.  Woo-hoo!  There is still work to be done, but we're home, and it has been WONDERFUL to sleep in our own little beds and cook in our own little kitchen.  Outside of my house it still looks like a war zone with multiple brush piles of fallen trees and blue tarps everywhere, but it is great to be home nonetheless.

We haven't really been cooking much yet in our own little kitchen this week, so I felt a strong need to make up for that today.  I had planned to work in my garden today, too, but it was pretty rainy all day. 

Side bar - what most of you don't realize is just how incredible it is that I just typed "I had planned to work in my garden today."  I don't garden.  I never have.  But I have these landscaping boxes in the front of my house now, and two planting consultants/friends who have adopted me to grow and learn.  Literally.  We planted some things 2 days before the tornado or 2 days BT.  And then I planted the flowers 15 days AT. 

How long will I measure time by the tornado - BT and AT?  

The BT plants are these few herbs - rosemary, parsley, basil, thyme, sage and dill.  The parsley seems to be suffering a bit from the rain.  Some of the leaves are yellow instead of green, and there are posts on the Intranet that indicate this comes from too much rain and not enough sun - which pretty much fits our weather pattern around here of late, sooo...We also planted some coral bells and hosta which are doing beautifully. 

The flowers were all planted AT.  There are a few daisies and some vinca and some geraniums.  Given the war zone everywhere around it may seem silly to plant flowers, but for me it felt like a small act of defiance and hope for beauty again.

I still need to put the mulch down, which is what I was planning to do today, but given the materials from the contractor still in the garage plus the rain, well it didn't seem to happen. 

It turned out to be more of a "loafing" day at home.  A quiet day to really settle back into home.  And for me that means spending some time in the kitchen, which I did.

It all began with using some of the rosemary from my garden.  I love the sound of that, using an herb from my garden.  I bought a package of chicken thighs a couple of nights ago, so I finely chopped the fresh rosemary and combined it with a few other dried herbs.  I cut up a red potato into eighths to toss with the herbs along with olive oil. 

I heated up some olive oil and butter in the cast iron skillet and browned the seasoned chicken thighs before sprinkling with the herbs and finishing in the oven.  Here is a picture of the browned thighs, but only 3 of them look browned in the pic...the other 3 look rather insipid, but I blame the camera or the photographer.  The real chicken looked much better.

About 30 minutes in the oven for the chicken plus a rest, and about 40 mintues for the potatoes, and here was lunch.  And yes, adding a strawberry as a garnish mattered even though it was just lunch for me.  It made me feel more festive and celebratory that way.

But I haven't gotten to the best parts yet - the "loafing" parts.  First the pound cake.  I first made this 3 days BT.   I made it as part of dessert for friends, served with strawberries, and whipped cream and cookies and some cinnamon puff pastry fans.  I found this cream cheese pound cake recipe on the KAF website and loved the topping and the look of it.  I followed the recipe with only a couple of minor additions - I added sparkling sugar along with the topping called for and then used an amaretto infused sugar soaking syrup.  It really is the yummiest pound cake I have found, and I was looking forward to making it again.  So this is the first loaf of the day...and yes, even though pound cake ripens wonderfully over a day or so, I cut into it and ate half a piece off of the end.  Soooo good...really...

First the recipe link...
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/golden-vanilla-pound-cake-recipe

And now the pick from my oven this afternoon...

The other thing I needed to bake to feel more at home was a loaf of bread.  There is just nothing like the smell of bread baking.  Nothing, and I was craving that smell and flavor.  So this is the recipe I chose - so easy with no guess work when done in the irreplaceable Kitchen Aid mixer.

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/white-sandwich-bread-recipe

And here is how it looked right out of the oven...

Ahhh...sigh...so nice...topped off with watching one of my favorite recent movies...It's Complicated.  Who doesn't fall in love with Steve Martin all over again every time they watch it?  He utters the sexiest line EVER in any movie when they are driving back home in the car after the graduation party...hang on..it's coming up right now..."Jane, your age is one of my favorite things about you."  Sigh...maybe someday My Prince will tell me that.  And he and I can make chocolate croissants on a date, too.

Rambling, but that can often happen after a day of loafing.  Lovely, quiet, restorative and yummy loafing.