Nothin' cookin'

Except the weather, and even that ain't so bad now: low- to mid-90's for the highs, low- to mid-70's for the lows (and to show off, that's 32-35C for the highs and 21-24C for the lows), although it's still pretty humid.

Juj went off to a laser blastin' birthday party on Sunday evening, so while he was in the woods shooting infrared guns at other kids (really - how far my parental boundaries have fallen!), G-man and I ran off for a nearby (somewhat pedestrian) dinner a deux that I did not cook.

And thus starts the September through December blur of attending and hosting birthday parties big and little, school fetes, State Fair, church events, wedding anniversary, visits from grandparents, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and no doubt at least one trip out of town...

I'll be here when I can, but somehow, this is always the busiest four months of the year -- can I get an "Amen, sister" anyone? -- so don't be worried (ha!) if I'm even worse at posting that usual.

Relax...have a steak

Last Sunday, I made a vegie & shrimp red Thai curry with brown rice (frozen cooked brown rice is a great if indulgent invention) and fresh figs with Greek yogurt and honey for dessert. Relatively healthy, relatively quick, relatively good. Which fit the bill, as I've been feeling kinda stressed as of late. G-man and I are both busy at work, and it wipes me out to the point where I have a hard time keeping up with the home front. But the weather continues to cool down -- I think it's dipped below 90 for the high some in the past week or so -- and that helps. Oh, and we got our HVAC system replaced, which helps, too, in a big way, since air conditioning is a necessity in summer in Texas in my opinion.

This weekend we had a wonderful unexpected albeit short overnight visit with our 2/3 of our family friends from OKC, en route to a fencing tournament in Houston. It was lovely to see them, and it also pushed me into cleaning up the guest room a bit. Which was great. Plus we had breakfast at our favorite, the Original Pancake House, before they left town Saturday morning.

For Sunday dinner today, I asked Juj if he wanted roasted chicken or baby back ribs (one is an old standby that I haven't made in a while, the other was a recipe I had downloaded to try), and he surprised me by saying ribs rather than chicken. But then he said "Can we have steak?" Wow - this from the kiddo who is not usually a big read meat fan! And since it so happened that I had some rib-eyes in the freezer that I'd bought on sale a while back, I pulled them out for a quick microwave defrost.

• BLT wedge salad with fresh buttermilk ranch dressing
• Sauteed spinach, steamed broccoli
• Seared & oven roasted steak
• Red fingerling potatoes pan-roasted in bacon fat with rosemary, salt & pepper
• Peaches poached in Teavana Orange Blossom tea with agave nectar (strained and reduced to a syrup with orange zest & juice after poaching)