So Many Firsts

Yesterday was my first official day of the 50s Housewife Experiment and last night I slept like a log. It was a busy, busy day that kept me on my feet pretty much the entire time. Quite different from a day parked at the computer.

To get a bit of a head start, I made bread and buns on the weekend. I had never made wholewheat bread before, so I was curious to see how it would turn out. Not really pretty, but, well, there it is:



I was a bit surprised when I pulled it out of the oven though, as it barely rose. You can see what I mean when I place an object in the picture to give it some perspective:



It seems I made mini bread. With its penchant for little people and baked goods, maybe TLC will be inspired by it and make a series called Little Loaves or something (after My Monkey Baby, I'll believe anything).

I went back and looked at the yeast packet I had grabbed to see if there was any instructions I might have missed. It's been a while since I needed to use yeast for anything and it turns out, like any living organism, it has an expiry date. I'll put it this way: When this yeast was at its prime, the New York skyline was looking a little different than it does now.

So, yah.

But it all still tastes good. A little ... dense, but good.

Patrick had a few slices (toasted with butter) with his breakfast yesterday morning which also included a fried egg, three strips of bacon, fresh squeezed orange juice ("You know there's pulp in here," he whined - and then pretended to be joking, but totally wasn't), coffee and a glass of milk. I opted to just have a piece of toast with Saskatoon berry jam, an orange and some decaf coffee with milk.

When he went off to work, it was time for me to hit the list.

The thing about opening up all your blinds in the morning is that it casts a spotlight on all the dust in the home. Bunnies galore. So that "light dusting" I was supposed to do room-to-room basically turned into a full-out clean, which of course put me behind schedule. I skipped lunch in an attempt to catch up; that was a bit of a mistake as I felt like I was running pretty low on fuel by the time dinner was to be served.

When I was setting the table, I realized I couldn't remember the last time we had used it for dining. It's normally our catch-all for mail, keys and random stuff. When Patrick got home I asked him if we had ever eaten together at the table and he couldn't remember either. Last night may, in fact, have been the first time we formally consummated our relationship with it. How sad is it that after nearly four years, our table could have still gotten an annulment from us?

For dinner, I made rolls, a garden salad, shepherd's pie - all from scratch. The shepherd's pie recipe I used from my vintage "Bride's Reference Book" was not at all like the pâté chinois I grew up on. This one involved cubed lamb, onions, carrots and peas. Those ingredients are all cooked together with a daring dash of rosemary (a WHOLE 1/4 teaspoon!), salt and pepper. The cooked fat from the lamb (a yummy meat that I don't think I've ever had outside my parents' home or a Greek restaurant) was separated and then combined with flour and milk to make a thickener (ew). It was then all tossed back together with meat and veg and placed in a baking dish. This was topped with mashed sweet potato that had been dotted with butter before going into the oven.

Like me, Patrick grew up disliking peas. Unlike me, he still thinks they're gross (I didn't know this when I decided on the dish). Needless to say, when I cut into the shepherd's pie and revealed the little evil orbs, I got a glimpse of what my 33-year old husband was like as an 8-year old.

"UGH! Ewwwww! PEAS? Why does it have PEAS?" he screamed.

Besides that outburst - and another about how the dish looked like the Hobgoblin had smashed into his plate at 100 miles an hour - the meal went over very well. It was the first time Patrick thinks he's ever had lamb (really?!) and he quite liked it. The peas "weren't so bad" in the end, which may have been the Manhattan I served to him talking.

Homemade angel food cake with cherries jubilee and ice cream was for dessert. This was my first attempt at a flambe. Something apparently didn't go quite right as my flambe wasn't really flaming - just a short crackle and a bit of smoke. Hmm. Lamebe. In any case, it tasted good!

Turns out Patrick also "hates" cherries. Sigh. Whatever. The slice of angel food I packed for him for lunch is more in tune with his refined palate - it's covered in Nesquik syrup.

Alrighty - enough blessed Internet for me, I have a day of housekeeping to get on.