My week....

This past week I stayed busy with preparing foods and baking! I thoroughly enjoyed these tasks!

 Sunday afternoon I made 2 batches of pesto! I had a large basil plant I wanted to used so I wouldn't have to worry about keeping it alive. ;)
I've only recently become acquainted with Pesto. I remember reading about it along with several recipe variations in one of Taste of Home's magazines from last summer! This year I was able to grow my own herbs and vegetables. So I decided to try it! So far only used it twice, both times it added a lot of flavor and I really liked it.

 Having recently found a great Target Daily Deal, I bought myself a food processor that was marked way down from original price! It's a great tool!

I also tried more fruit leather. These were strictly pureed fruit, with nothing added. The Crunchy Cantaloupe were good, but the added coconut, and nuts gave it a weird texture and I think affected how it dried.

I first tried Strawberries and Bananas! Which my husband said had a "kick to it, and for flavor guessed apriocts/melon/ and something else. He didn't know what fruits were used. After telling him it was strawberry and banana, he said that explained the "seedy" texture. I thought his guess and description of it was interesting!

I later made peach and strawberry fruit leather, also!

I've recently come across a new frugal living website http://faithfulprovisions.com. It's rapidly adding to my list of new things to try and experiment with. Including pantry and freezer inventory lists. Making meal planning easier as you can at a glance know what you have, how much, and where it's located in freezer/pantry! Will also help with making grocery shopping lists.
I've been wanting to start making homemade bread. We don't eat a lot of bread, occasionally I'll make french bread or dinner rolls for meals, but other than that, we don't eat sandwiches or toast or anything like that often. However, sometimes it's nice to have bread on hand for those times when you do want a quick PB sandwich.
I strongly covet my mother in law's secret bread recipe. She said I will inherit it someday.... so in the meantime, I'll have to settle for something else.
This new website explains how to make homemade bread, along with her recipe. I have made bread and am familiar with how it goes down. But I did learn a few new technics. Such as spraying measuring cup with oil before adding honey so it won't stick and none will be wasted. And kneeding with oil instead of flour. This keeps the dough moist and makes less of a mess!
I tried the recipe! It worked wonderfully! I'm very pleased with how nicely my 2 loaves turned out (also have one more dough ball in the freezer for pizza crust).

Our Church Pastor and family have been gone for the past 3 weeks on vacation. They returned home Wednesday night, so after baking bread, I made a batch of cookies to welcome them home with.

The remainder of this week has been spent preparing for a road trip this weekend. My husband and I are headed up to the Pacific Northwest for 5 days. Sunday and Monday my man is attending a Larry Vicker's Carbine Training course! He's super excited. Once he completes that in North Washington, we're headed to the coast, and will head back down, taking the scenic route home, with some planned stops along the way to do some site seeing, and meet up with friends! I'm excited for a beautiful drive to new places, time spent with my man and opportunity for uninterrupted conversation, camping on the beach (which is something that would be on my bucket list if I had one), and whatever else comes up!