Cooking, a resolution, and of course, knitting

In cooking:
Sometimes we get into a rut and just make the same old stuff again and again. Well, I do.
Pasta, burger, fish, chicken; Pasta, burger, fish, chicken; etc. (we try to limit red meat as much as possible, so the burgers are mostly veggie-burgers).

Anyway, one of my favorite French desserts is clafouti– a custardy cake made with fresh cherries. So I finally made one, for the first time, last weekend. It was yummy, just as good as the ones I’ve had in France. And here it is.
You can only do this when cherries are in season, so it’s a fairly small window of time. It’s really an easy recipe: you make a batter of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter, and you pour this over the cherries in a baking dish, and bake. You don’t even pit the cherries!

I don’t know about you, but when I was little, my mother would never dream of heating up the oven for just one thing. I guess the electric bill was a big item for my family back then, and you just didn’t waste energy (we had electric stoves).
I still feel guilty about using the oven for one item. Therefore, I made up a batch of blueberry bran muffins at the same time. They were great too. After eating two while they were still warm, I froze the rest for quick snacks or breakfasts later on.

Resolution
After living 18 years in the same house (yikes – where does the time go?) we have accumulated a fair amount of “stuff”. I wouldn’t say our house is terribly cluttered because we do manage to find places to put our stuff, but nonetheless we have too much. Both DH and I have trouble letting go of things; we get sentimental about the little artifacts, souvenirs and gadgets that we accumulate.
At the same time, I’m lazy and don’t care to spend a beautiful sunny day indoors cleaning out a closet. When I saw this suggestion in a comment on the Crazy Aunt Purl blog, I knew it was for me. This is it: Throw out one thing a day. Simple, no?

I started with an old cookie sheet that’s old, tarnished and stained. I have 2 like-new cookie sheets that I will use in the future, so why keep this one?
The second thing was a glass jar. I have many of these (sigh, I have trouble not washing and saving jars from jam, olives, pickles, etc.) This is also a habit inherited from my mother.

Between kitchen stuff and clothing items I’m sure I can get rid of lots of stuff. And you don’t have to literally throw it away -- you can put it in a box to donate.

Knitting – I will have to talk about it next time, as I have to go now; we’re going to see a play – The Three Musketeers – in an outdoor theater set in Topanga Canyon. Should be fun!

Bye for now!