I haven’t written a post like this in awhile, so I thought it would be fun to share a few of my weekend highlights.
I’ve been reading Sheltering Rain (affiliate link) by Jojo Moyes lately. Although it’s been taking me longer than normal to finish it, I’m really enjoying it. It’s been cooler (almost fall like) weather here in Calgary, which feels appropriate since the book is set in Ireland with lots of fog and rain.
It feels like it’s taken forever, but the tomatoes that I started from seeds back in February or March are finally starting to ripen! I went with a bunch of plants that produce cherry tomatoes since they take less time to grow that full sized ones. We have a short growing season here so I wasn’t able to plant them outside until the first week of June. There’s something about tomatoes fresh from the garden that makes them taste 10 times better than any tomatoes you can get in a grocery store.
Saturday I headed over to my boyfriend’s place. His dog Winston had gone to daycare on Friday, which always exhausts him in the best possible way. He loves playing with his dog friends and running around. The next day he’s in recovery mode and especially cuddly and takes lots of naps. He seemed to think that whenever I sat on the floor with him meant that it was an invitation to sit on me. It always surprises me that it looks so uncomfortable but he’s perfectly happy sitting on me.
He has a monkey toy that he’s had since he was a puppy that he likes to suck on. Apparently it’s a bulldog thing. He typically does it before bed, but he was sucking on it on and off for most of the afternoon. Winston was so tired that he didn’t even come to say goodbye to me when I left. He just laid down at the end of the hall and couldn’t even lift his head up off the floor. My boyfriend definitely got his money’s worth out of daycare on Friday.
We ended up watching The 13th Warrior together. It was kind of a mix between Indiana Jones and The Lord of the Rings without the Nazis and elves. It’s an older movie (late 90’s I think) and stars Antonio Banderas.
I got a text from a friend asking if I would be interested in some crabapples. She had gotten a bunch from a friend and didn’t think she’d be able to eat or use them all up. Of course I said I’d be happy to take some off her hands! I spent some time googling recipes – I didn’t want to have to go out and get any additional ingredients. I did have all of the basics for baking in the pantry though, things like flour, sugar, baking powder, and spices. Finally, I decided to go with this recipe and I’m really happy with how it turned out.
The cake was dense which was perfect because it meant that the apple slices didn’t all sink to the bottom of the cake. It smelled amazing while it was baking in the oven. You definitely knew that there were some spices in it (cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, and ginger). It was also perfectly moist too, but not so much that it was mushy. The above photo are all of the crabapples I still have left after making the cake, so I’ll have to figure out something else to do with them. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. The recipe included optional walnuts and a glaze, but I decided to skip them because I didn’t have the walnuts or the apple cider for the glaze. I think I may even prefer it without the glaze, as it’s not too sweet.
I don’t have much exciting on the agenda for the upcoming week. I have a therapy appointment and that’s about it other than the usual day to day stuff. It’ll be kind of nice to have a low key week though. Do you have any fun plans for the week? Let me know in the comments below.
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