Sundays Are For Food

I am not a big fan of Sundays. It's the day when I know that tomorrow, I'll be back to work, I'll have to go to bed early tonight, and I usually wake up late on Sunday morning as a result of Saturday night's late bedtime. Sundays seem to pass by so quickly this way, which makes sense, since it seems that I have less than 12 waking hours in one Sunday so often...

I woke up at 8:30 this morning and felt so uncharacteristically energized for a Sunday that I hopped out of bed, did my makeup and hopped back in to bed to have a FaceTime session with my friend G. Work just gave me an iPad for various classroom technology lessons. So far, it's been good for two things: FaceTime and Pinterest.

Oh Pinterest. Your endless walls of well-lit photos and how-to links. Admittedly, I've started going down the usual route of pinning cooking and baking photos to my boards, but have also taken towards the DIY crafts and-- bum bum bum-- wedding planning.

Nope. Not engaged. Not even close to it yet. But hey, it's going to happen someday. A girl can start planning ahead a little bit...

I love the metal work on this one. Designs like this are more or less more appealing to me than the stone itself! *cough cough*

Pinterest has also brought me back to eating-on-impetus. As I went about my morning, after cleaning the kitchen and taking stock of my refrigerator before the weekend grocery run, I remembered that I had a half dozen tomatoes in the vegetable drawer. Still good, but maybe I overshot on how many I would need last week. Recently I pinned a recipe for oven-dried tomatoes that looked pretty simple, if not a bit lengthy in bake time (5 hours!?). I decided to go for it and, boy, are they hard to save any for later. They're so good by themselves! Chewy and tangy-- I can't wait to throw this into my next pasta.

Not the most attractive photo I've taken, but oh are these good. Right now, they're soaking in olive oil with a few cloves of garlic.
- 5 Roma tomatoes (sliced 1/4" thick from top to bottom)
- Olive oil (enough to drizzle lightly over the slices and enough to cover them if saving for later)
- Kosher salt
- Thyme (optional)
- Garlic (optional, for soaking)
Bake at 225 degrees for 3-4 hours on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Today's lunch was a stellar sandwich that took it to the next level with some leftover pesto sauce that I mixed with mayonaise. Thanks to a fabulous little Cuisinart food processor, I can have pesto whenever I want! This was a sandwich worthy of a product info-mercial. Now, all I need is an actual toaster oven. For the last 8 months, I've been grilling bread on a baking sheet over a stove burner. I have to say, the process makes for pretty crispy bread with the right amount of give in the middle...

And pesto I shall have-- on EVERYTHING.
- Wheat bread
- Basil
- Sharp cheddar
- Tomato
- Oven roasted turkey
- Pesto mayonaise

Now that I've finished my sandwich, it's time to make a first attempt at homemade ice cream. Blackberry cheesecake ice cream. Oh kitchen gods, please let this work. I don't want to shell out for an actual ice cream churning machine. I've been scouring Goodwill almost twice a week for a second-hand machine-- once, a few months ago, there were three of them!-- but none lately. Darn! Should have picked one up when I had the chance.

Whether or not this works though, it's not even 4pm yet and I've already done so much today. And I'm in pretty good spirits about it, too. From here on out, I proclaim-- Sundays are for food.