summer storms

We had a big thunder and lightening storm last night - it knocked out our power for a few hours so D and I watched the lightening and listened to the thunder. There was a very wierd orange glow to the sky during the worst of it and lots of sirens all around. The garden really needed the rain. It is still muggy this morning but sunny now. It's unusual here to have such a long storm, but it reminded me of being back east. I remember sitting on the deck of a coastal schooner on the Maine coast watching a lightening display light up the night sky for about 1 1/2 hours - me and my crush at the time listening to Altan's Red Crow.

Yesterday was a bit of an off day. I had a dentist appointment and D left to work at the store for a few hours to cover an emergency. Fortunately K came over to look after T - took him to the park and for ice cream just ahead of his own dentist appointment! I took T to his appointment - thankfully he opened his mouth for the dentist this time (unlike last time) and had his teeth counted (20 teeth). Then they were painted purple (like a dinosaur) to show me what a bad job we're doing brushing his teeth. Great - so now I feel like a bad mummy!

Came home to discover D had tried to dry my moonblush tomatoes some more (he thought they were mushy) by heating them briefly in the oven. It worked a bit so I thought I would put them back in the oven for a while. So I preheated the oven and put them back in but in my tired, distracted state (yes that is my excuse - T was up at 5AM so I was tired...) I forgot to turn the oven off. About 20 minutes later I smelled something burning - I had carbon pucks instead of tomatoes - disaster. I think that my adaptation of Nigella's recipe goes like this (the first batch worked really well - ) cut cherry tomatoes in half and place in a baking dish cut side up. Sprinkle with 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp sugar and 1 tsp dried thyme. Preheat the oven to 400 deg, when heated pop the tomatoes in the oven and TURN THE OVEN OFF. Leave in the oven overnight or longer (18 hours for very juicy tomatoes).

After some rest and grocery shopping, I decided to tempt the cooking gods again. As I had some raspberries that were a bit past their prime, I tried making a lemon raspberry buttermilk cake from smittenkitchen.com. It turned out great and yummy. Phew!

I took some pictures while making dinner - my attempt at being artistic. I made calabrese salad (D's favorite) using local tomatoes, our own basil and mini boccanchini.

A drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar and yum.

I followed with spagetti tossed with fresh peas (homegrown), garlic scape and artichoke pesto from the market, lemon and parmesan cheese.