Sleeping and cooking

I have been doing a lot of sleeping lately.  Sleeping because I've been so tired, and the weather so nice and cool that it makes sleeping that much more comfortable.  And cooking up what I can in the kitchen between visits and other commitments.  I used a bread maker for the first time last week.  It's so much easier than making bread from scratch, I have no idea why I didn't try it sooner.  I used a 2 cups white and 1 cup whole wheat mixture.  My husband has had better success with a bit less whole wheat and, surprisingly, a little vanilla flavoured almond milk.  His loaf filled the pan and was sooo soft and fluffy with a chewy crust.  YUM.  But don't ask me why he tried the vanilla almond milk because I didn't ask, I just enjoyed.

We went to a pig roast on the weekend and I was asked to bring a salad.  There are so many wonderful salads out there that I had a hard time choosing what to make.  I decided on a pasta salad and used some of what I had on hand - red onions, avocado, grape tomatoes, cooked chicken, canned corn and black beans.  For the dressing I used chives, plain yogurt, lime juice, olive oil, minced garlic and a bit of mayo.  I will make this again, it was delicious.  This was before I added the dressing.  

I made a cake for my girls to share, yellow cake with chocolate chips, butter cream icing (not from scratch) and sprinkles - I wish I had taken a pic when I was done.  My girls love my home made cakes but next time I was asked to make my home made lemon frosting and that it didn't need chocolate chips.  

And my last food pic is of some delicious yellow beans that we were given and some onions from our garden.  The onions are still pretty small but they are popping up out of the ground so my sister grabbed these two.  I went down and stepped on all of them to bend over the green stalks - my mom told me that doing this sends the energy down into the onion so they will get bigger, fingers crossed.  I cooked the yellow beans for dinner one night and the next day added them to some pasta, peas, red onion and tuna - added a dollop of mayo and called it tuna salad.  I'm wishing now that I had planted yellow beans - another note for the garden next year.  

Happy foodie Thursday everyone!