My Boyfriend’s Back

His name is Jack—Jack Frost! I know a lot of people are mourning the loss of warmer temps, but not me. I’m welcoming Jack Frost back with open arms. I know it wasn’t too long ago that I was celebrating his departure, but now I’m ecstatic to have him return. We have one of those relationships, ya know? heh

I reunited with something else that I love about the end of summer/early fall: Honeycrisp apples!!!! They’re back in stock at Hannaford and I am thrilled. Seriously. I bought 3 lbs as soon as I saw them. They’re so beautiful and fresh and tastier than ever. I was sad when I returned just a few days later to find the stock dwindling to nearly nothing. I panicked a little and bought whatever they had left save for the ones with obvious nicks, LOL. Honeycrisps: Serious business! Want to hear something crazy? We owned a farm market for the first 20 years of my life and we sold Honeycrisps by the pound in  800-pound bins and I never ate them. Never. Not one!! I just had my first one a few years ago. Yeah, I’m still mad at myself for and ashamed of that, lol. I won’t even mention the Bosc pear trees that we had in our yard that I snubbed. They grew so many pears that just fell to the ground, untouched, unwanted… wasted. Sigh. I’m kind of embarrassed to even admit those things, haha.

Now that it’s not 98 degrees with 100% humidity in the kitchen, I’m thinking about so many warm recipes to make. Pasta is a menu staple, but I haven’t had much of it this summer. I thought fresh pasta sounded amazing the other day, but I wasn’t interested in actually making it. That’s a project and a half. Instead, I bought a package of Buitoni fresh linguine. I’ve had Buitoni stuffed pastas that they sent vouchers for in the past and knew that I liked their products. I wasn’t disappointed this time, either. It was totally delicious and hit the spot.

I made a quick sauce with fresh garlic and fresh grape tomatoes sauteed in extra virgin olive oil, then I added in a large can of tomato puree, one can of tomato paste, bell pepper strips, dried oregano, Himalayan pink salt, balsamic vinegar, and a pinch of black pepper. Garnished with grated parmesan cheese and fresh parsley.

Yum. This along with a butter lettuce salad dressed in EVOO + lemon juice + Himalayan pink salt + black pepper made an excellent post-intermittent-fast meal. SO GOOD.

Yesterday, we had our car detailed in Newburgh. We borrowed my grandma’s car while we dropped it off—took three hours. It looks gorgeous! Even prettier than when we first bought it. Now it’s super shiny and glossy. Royal Auto Detail in Newburgh does a magnificent job. If you’re in the area and need your car to sparkle, check them out, it’s worth every penny. Plus, the owner is a very nice guy.

While we were waiting for the car, we met up with a real estate agent to look at a house that we’re interested in. Imagine this: You love the outside of the house, the location, the size, the kitchen—the whole first floor and basement and yard. You get to the second floor and you’re like… WTF?! That is pretty much what happened. We love 80% of the house and aren’t sure what we think about the second floor. The master bedroom is on the first floor BUT it’s small compared to the upstairs bedrooms. Upstairs: 3 large bedrooms, 1 large room with THREE walls (no door) that’s open to the hallway, one large bonus room that goes wall-to-wall across the top of the garage, 2 bathrooms that are RIGHT next to each other other yet have NO entryways from any of the bedrooms, and then finally, one TINY room in the very front of the house with a huge window. And this house was custom-built. I don’t know what they were thinking or why this worked for them, but it’s just plain odd. We’d have to do some serious remodeling to make the upstairs more functional because the master bedroom on the first floor? It’s directly off of the kitchen. That doesn’t work for me. At all. This is tough because when we make a list of pros and cons, it’s 50/50. Surely it’s not the only house we’ll look at, but I think the upstairs is so humorous that I actually like it. We love everything else, so maybe we’d love the way it is for awhile before delving into costly construction projects. I don’t know, man. It’s funky. Dustin thinks they designed the second floor in Sims, hahahaha. We’ll see what happens with quirky house. It’s still on our short list, but I’m going to have to reconcile with the fact that if it were 100 years older it would go from quirky to creepy, lol.

While we’re on the subject of creepy and chilling, I’m watching (listening) to this video:

This song always makes me feel a little tingly no matter how many times I listen to it, and the video makes it even more chilling for whatever reason. It takes me back. Back to a time when I had hundreds of pounds of Honeycrisp apples at my disposal and snubbed them.

What songs give you chilly willies?

I’m supposed to be sleeping!! Nite nite

Tagged as: Buitoni, fresh pasta, Italian, Jack Frost, linguine, music, pasta