Whirlwind of a weekend

James Beard's bread recipe

 Well, that was a busy weekend. Benjamin was out of town Friday and Saturday at a conference, but I didn't really have time to notice. Between my normal weekend chores (groceries, laundry, walking dog) and tennis (outdoors! in the sun!), I was plenty busy, and then I also attended a baby shower for a friend, baked bread, made an apple pie, played extra tennis, and made soup so we could feed our friends who came for dinner.

I made the filling, Marie Callender helped with the crust.

Ordinarily, I would have made the pie crust by hand, but in addition to the bread I baked on Saturday, I also baked biscuits for biscuits and gravy at breakfast time on Sunday, and had no desire to (a) get my hands all covered in sticky dough again, and (b) clean the counter after I got sticky dough all over everything. (Actually, there probably wouldn't have been much dough on the counter, since I roll out pie crusts on wax paper, but since it was a double crust, it was going to be twice as much work, and I had had enough baking for one weekend.) The filling was some I made in the fall and froze. I hadn't tried it out yet, so I was relieved that it worked really well, and tasted like apple pie and not freezer cooties.

Monk Soup Cookbook (well, that's what we call it) pea soup

The extra tennis was great. I subbed in a friendly match for a friend, with a friend, and since the weather was nice, we got to play outside. Now that I have been playing for awhile, I can say without a doubt that outside tennis is the way to go. Even with the wind and the sun in your eyes.

And the dinner with friends was great fun. Miikka got to play with a 4-year-old who had at least as much energy as he did, and the adults got to talk and eat good food and drink cocktails (well, not me, but everyone else).