Home Sweet Home

Although we did some traveling this weekend (to our southern neighbor Chicago and our northern neighbor Wilmette), we stayed pretty close to home.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to our (faithful?) blog followers that some of Patrick's favorite activities include riding his bike and talking about bikes. It's almost surprising that it took this long, but three years after we started dating, I finally have a new bike to call my own! I'd been sporadically riding Dan's old mountain bike which never fit me right (he was at least six inches taller than me, after all), but a new bike that fits me properly is such a welcome change!!

My new bike is a Trek 1.5, men's design, and is a shiny red, white, and black which takes me back to my glory days (All Hail, Alma Mater, the pride of our hearts... Easton High School our High School so dear! HAHAHA). I got a new (matching) helmet as well to keep all my gray matter safe and sound.

We took "the kids" out for a ride yesterday - first a quick loop to pick up our produce box one mile away, then up to Wilmette, all along Lake Michigan. The Lake looked absolutely beautiful yesterday, a bright teal/blue, and from the beachfront up near Northwestern there was a great view of downtown Chicago. I'm kicking myself for not having brought our camera! Plus, the blog world needs to see pictures of us in our biking gear. hahaha

Keep in mind, we are now following in Oliver and Lisette's footsteps - we have two bikes per person in our household. Soon we will need an offsite storage unit just for our sports equipment!

Amidst all of our bike buying and bike riding, we had a busy weekend in the kitchen. On Friday night, while I was pretty much unconscious on the couch because of a nasty migraine, Patrick made pizza and then English Muffins! The English Muffins tasted better than Thomas' (probably because food in our kitchen is made with love - HAHA), and I'm still totally impressed that he did it (although he swears it was easy). We also put to use an oldie-but-goodie recipe on Saturday night: Charlotte's It's-So-Easy Pound Cake (with chocolate chips). We tried out a recipe from NY Times for no-knead bread - in the midst of that process we weren't sure how it would turn out, but it tasted great. It would be a great recipe for someone who loves fresh bread but doesn't own a stand mixer (I'm looking at you, Mom). Yesterday for dinner we made stuffed patty pan squash, using some squash that we'd received in recent weeks in our produce box. A winning recipe - but we were too hungry by the time they came out of the oven to find the camera and take a pic! I will, however, leave you with some pictures of the English Muffins.

(Did you know that English Muffins are made in a frying pan? I had no idea.)

The next few weeks should be pretty low-key... I'm hoping we'll get in quite a few bike rides before the weather turns frigid.

Remember, if you come visit us in Chicago, you too can have tasty homemade baked goods! :o)