Cooling Off

Good morning, my friends. The clouds have moved in, and we're expecting cooler weather today. By tomorrow, we're hoping we can turn off the A/C. I miss having the windows open, especially at night.

It didn't seem like much was accomplished yesterday, although I finished all the to-do's on my list. We got our RSV vaccines in the morning. We go to a Safeway pharmacy, and they give us a 10% off coupon when we get our vaccines there. It seemed like a good enough reason to do our grocery shopping. Since our diet has been almost exclusively zucchini, we didn't need a lot. 

It was lunch time when we returned home, and we both needed naps after that. When we could, we set free the cats. When I checked on them ten minutes later, this is what I saw:

They do have a way of flattening themselves out.

I was busy making the gravy and the Yorkshire pudding batter for tonight's dinner. When that was finished, I was able to get a little sewing done. It was late enough in the day that I put off starting on Tiny House #31. I really wanted to finish this block for When Quilters Gather. This one is called "And a Yard of this One."

Here are the four blocks I have for this quilt so far.

It was getting late enough in the day that I didn't want to start on anything new. It seemed a good time to get started on last night's dinner of Sheet Pan Hot Honey Garlic Chicken with Zucchini. (You knew zucchini would be involved, didn't you?) Have you ever noticed how ingredients for recipes go in and out of fashion? Twice this week I'm using an ingredient I've never used before: miso. Although I'd heard of it, I had to look it up to see what it is. And now it seems I'm seeing a lot of recipes for "Hot Honey" something. When Mike and I were out for dinner a few nights ago, he ordered a "hot honey" dish off the menu.

So, okay. It also seems "hot honey" means different things to different people. Some of the hot honey things I've seen have been literally honey that is heated up. Most of them, however, have involved adding something spicy to the honey to heat it up. And that's what last night's dinner was.

The chicken is cut into chunks and then tossed in olive oil, spicy stuff, and flour. It's spread out on one side of a sheet pan. The other side of the pan is reserved for the sliced zucchini. Then, both are roasted in a hot oven. After 20 minutes, I added a "buffalo sauce" and then roasted it for another five minutes. The recipe suggests serving it over rice with chunks of avocado, green onion, and basil. (I didn't have any basil, but I used the green onion and avocado.) The recipe also suggests using Ranch or Blue Cheese dressing. We had Ranch in our refrigerator, and so we used that. It helped to cool the spiciness. And we really liked this dish. I like it when I can just put something in a hot oven and it practically makes itself. I'll make this again. Just FYI, it is spicy, but not so much that it set our mouths on fire. Also, I used Frank's hot sauce in the buffalo sauce, and I used just one teaspoon of cayenne. We used boneless, skinless chicken thighs, but chicken breasts can also be used if you want a leaner cut.

Okay, so today I'll for sure spend an hour on Tiny House #31...this one:

And then I'll move on to making the next to book blocks for the Shop Hop 3.0 quilt. These are the shops I'll be doing:

For tonight's dinner, I'll be putting together the parts of the Toad in the Hole test recipe. I won't be able to share the recipe, but you can count on seeing a picture when it's all finished. Also, I'm going to make a zucchini coffee cake today. There's no zucchini in the Toad in the Hole, and so I have to kill some zucchini some other way. And, in case your wondering, I told Mike he could look forward to another week of zucchini. After that, I'm calling a halt. He's been a good sport about the whole thing.

So, I'm feeling a little less-than-energetic after our RSV vaccines yesterday, although I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm sick. I do have a mildly sore arm, but I think that will be the worst of it. Probably a midday nap will be nice. Stay healthy and cool out there today. Let's all meet back here tomorrow.