Monday shenan-agains

We don't have very much to blog about these days... life has been pleasantly quiet around here. The tease of warm weather did get us out of our winter funk and back to our (almost)daily walks around the neighborhood though... and the neighborhood squirrels are back in action! We caught one happily bulking up his tree-trunk nest the other day, and this morning I had one greet me at the kitchen window while happily munching on a bread crust... these squirrels keep us way too entertained.


I also got some happy baking in this weekend - it was my dad's birthday on Friday so I made a shaker lemon pie. One of my customers at work had made it not long ago and insisted that I should too, and since meyer lemons are in season lately I decided to go for it.

The pie was a w e s o m e. Not too sweet, not too bitter, just awesome. The butter crust smelled delicious while it was baking too. The pie was a big hit - we almost finished it off between four people, but I was able to save two slices for later before they got devoured too. I'll definitely be making it again (maybe soon, since I still have two meyer lemons in the fridge!) but I want to get a mandolin first, I just couldn't get those lemons sliced thin enough with our not-quite-the-sharpest knives.


Another meal worth mentioning is the beef stew Shawn made while I was at work Saturday afternoon. Even though we got it back in December, it's the first thing we've made in our new slow cooker! The beef was super tender and moist, and although we had no celery to add to it, the celery salt Shawn's mom gave us for Christmas worked wonders in terms of flavor. I can't wait to slow-cook some more stuff!


But back to the baking - I promised Shawn a chocolate cheesecake for Valentine's day (since food is our favorite gift) but I never quite got around to making it. So after devouring that lemon pie this weekend I finally started on the decadent cheesecake. I'm happy to say that Shawn was pleasantly satisfied - it has the texture of a light chocolate mousse cake but it's not too heavy on the tongue or stomach. Cheesecake isn't one of my favorite desserts, I'm a cheesecake purist and don't really want anything other than graham crust and sweet tangy cream cheese when it comes right down to it. But this wasn't for me, it was for Shawn, and I'm just glad he enjoyed it :)



On a closing note, check out our latest sans-tv setup. Shawn got tired of not being able to use his computer while watching 'tv' on the big monitor, so he set up a dual monitor system.... now we're really wired. Unfortunately, it's not the most attractive set-up, but it'll do for now. It makes us feel like the geeks we know we really are.

Until next time!