Our son made the Crock Pot Pizza for us while he was here and it was delicious. I plan to tweak it a bit, though, and will leave out the pepperoni and will add some Asiago cheese. It should taste more like lasagna than pizza, as I will use my own homemade spaghetti sauce for the recipe.
Our French exchange student made Quiche Lorraine twice for us. Her mother is from Lorraine, France, and the quiche is a family specialty.
The pastry is a mixture of flour, butter, and water.
Beautiful!
She made the quiche much thinner than the quiches I am used to. We all loved it! Delicious!
Sooo good!
We’ve had a great month with our exchange student. She has a positive, bubbly personality. She’s always ready to help pick up, dry the dishes, help with dinner, vacuum, etc. And she and DD#3 have become very good friends. We are going to miss her a great deal!
I made a menu for last week, but didn’t get around to posting it. And this week, I’m running late. But better late than never! Our family company is gone and our exchange student heads home tomorrow. We will all miss her, but DD is especially going to miss this new friend.
We’ve kept our exchange student pretty busy this month. And DD has kept her camera busy taking lots of pictures. Here are some of the photo ops she has captured.
They enjoyed the Fourth of July weekend with all the celebrations.
Our exchange student would like to be a fire fighter so she especially enjoyed the fire trucks in the parade.
The girls had a great time watching the local fireworks. On the ground, looking up is the best way!
Hearts for you!
The spaces that make up the art museum were a lot of fun to photograph.
If you visit St. Louis, the Arch is a must!
The girls have become good friends and really enjoy spending their time together.
DH took them to a Cardinals baseball game.
And the zoo…
The grands had fun at the zoo, too. This twin didn’t like the penguins or the gorilla statue, but had no problem with the cobra sculpture.
We have a church dinner planned at our house after worship this Sunday, but beyond that, no big plans for the rest of the month. Our son and his family will leave for home on Sunday and our exchange student will go home next Thursday. Our lives may revert to a more normal schedule, but we’re going to miss the company and the fun we’ve had this month.
I’ve been looking at glass straws online for a month or so. Wanted to buy a few and then came across a blog giveaway which I won! I received five glass straws from strawesome.com via the giveaway on Simple Bites. Four of the straws are clear glass, two different lengths and two styles (widths)…regular and smoothie. The fifth one is decorated with a bit of colored glass. That’s the one I chose…surprised??
I really love the straw. I love glass in general, but the glass straw is great because it allows me to give up the use of plastic straws (which I used every day!). I have been reading a lot about the impact of plastic on our environment. When I started paying attention to what comes into and goes out of our home, in terms of plastic, I was really shocked. And I want to do something about it. Especially one-use-and-throw-it-away plastic. Not cool. It takes some effort to figure out how to quit using plastic products, but we’re working on it. I’ll post more about those efforts another time.
Listen to this six year old, named Anna, who has some information you should hear regarding plastic trash.
You can check these web sites for information about glass straws.
My mower came back from the shop today. I spent a couple of hours mowing the yard. It really needed it. Now it needs a good rain. But the blooms are still blooming. Here are a few pictures from around the garden.
The crape myrtle looked so pretty against the blue sky.
The daisies are a sea of white.
Hydrangea ‘Little Lamb’ is growing well. This is its second full summer in our garden. It blooms later than the other hydrangeas in the garden which is a nice feature.
1 1/8 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3 cups bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons white sugar
1 cup room temperature sharp Cheddar cheese, sliced and then diced into small pieces (divided into 3/4 c. and 1/4 c.)
Heat the buttermilk to 110-115*F. This won’t take long in the microwave, maybe 60-90 seconds, depending on your microwave.
Add the yeast, sugar, salt and flour and mix well. Knead by hand or with a mixer and a bread hook for four minutes. Add the 3/4 c. cheese and knead for two more minutes. If the cheese is at room temperature, it will be smoothly kneaded into the dough.
Allow to rise for 45-60 minutes until doubled in size.
Punch down and knead in the remaining 1/4 cup of shredded cheese. Knead just enough to incorporate all the cheese. This will leave some nice chunks of cheese in the dough. Cut the dough into twelve equal pieces.
Shape into twelve flattened rolls and place on a greased cookie sheet (or line the cookie sheet with parchment paper).
Allow to rise 45 minutes, until doubled in size. Bake at 350*F for 15-20 minutes, until browned.
