I Wish You All Could Be California Girls

Well, I chose that title because I was going to brag about our summer weather here in the Golden State. We have enjoyed 85 degree sunshine for the last four or five days. But then this morning - look what we woke up to. FOG!!! Yes, it will burn off and yes, it will probably be 80 degrees this afternoon but right now it looks like wet winter on weck!! Sooooooo.... Now I wish you all could be California girls so we could get together for dinner or brunch or a weekend at the beach and drink wine and talk crap just have a good ole' time.


I spent most of my weekend in the kitchen, cooking and baking and in the dining room stuffing my tummy and hanging with the family. On Saturday we were graced with the very rare appearance of my younger daughter Erica and her husband Sean for brunch. They were going to a concert in town so we all got together for ....What else, food. Erica is a vet and is interning this year at a big animal hospital. Her free time is almost non-existent. I haven't actually seen her since June. SO to celebrate I made brunch for everyone, my other daughter Megan came with her husband and my delightful grandson Mikey was there, too. I made scrambled eggs, sausage (turkey for the non-red meat eater, veggie for the vegetarian and pork for the rest of us) ham, muffins and scones and my very easy hash browns: two pounds frozen shredded hash browns, one can cream of celery soup, one pint sour cream, a bunch of grated cheese, half an onion chopped and half a can of French fried onions. Mix it all together and put in greased pan, Bake 1 1/2 hours until it's crispy. Top with remaining French-fried onions. It is sooooo not low-cal. I think I got the recipe on the All Recipes website. What I really liked and was easy to do was sliced pears and apples drizzled with olive oil and then sprinkled with salt and fresh rosemary and broiled. That was delicious. The recipe came from epicurious.com. We ate and ate and ate some more. We talked and laughed and told stories. I love having my girls home.



No sooner had we packed away all the leftovers and finished drying the last dish, than I started preparing my Sister's birthday dinner. We celebrated her day on Sunday. I have been wanting to make a roast like I sampled in England this summer. I roasted a loin of pork and had mash and veg and sticky toffee pudding for dessert. My niece came up from university to join us and that made it all the more special. Cooking is a passion for me but it is never as much fun as when I cook for my family. I love sitting around after we eat, telling stories that we have heard a hundred times but always find funny, usually about the youngest members but everyone is fair game. I always feel so lucky on the special occasions that we are family.

I did manage to get a couple of crafty things in. I'll let you know about these soon.
Well, the fog is just now beginning to burn off and it looks like today will be a good day to be a California girl after all. I'd like to hang on to these last days of summer but I know that the frost is on the pumpkin and I will surrender to autumn...But maybe not for a few weeks yet.