Puttering Around the House

Now that all this wedding hoopla has passed DH and I find ourselves with a lot of time on our hands. We try not to drive each other crazy being home together every day (I start back to work for the season on August 10th) and one of the things we've been doing to pass the time is make lots of meals from scratch. We recently started planning our dinner menu for the week in advance (an idea we totally stole from Janelle and Drew) and that's working out great. Even DH is enjoying it, and he's always been the "go to the grocery store every day and get what you feel like having at that moment" kind of guy. It also really reduces the chances we'll waste food because we've focused on buying only what we need to make the specific meals we've chosen. All this home cooking has also given us the chance to play with our new toys (aka wedding gifts)! We've used our KitchenAid mixer, waffle iron, baking stone, cookbooks and recipes, and lots of other stuff at least a few times already

In the past few weeks we've made homemade chickpea burgers, red beans and rice with chicken, pizza (with dough from scratch), sushi, carrot-peanut summer soup (surprisingly good), jicama slaw, fish tacos, and lots of other things I can't remember right now. The farmer's market is in full swing these days and our intake of fresh produce has picked up significantly, a much-needed change after a month of celebrations, vacations, and generally eating terribly.

So, one of the bright sides of dual unemployment is getting in to some good habits that will hopefully stick with us when we go back to working full-time.