Bread and Sauce

Well, today was spent in the kitchen, mostly. I finally got to use the bread machine...... and it was heavenly. In fact, the aroma of the baking bread made us remember everything about our stay up in Magnolia during the evacuation before Hurricane Rita. It was a bittersweet loaf of bread. Mostly sweet--- and very delicious.

So delicious, in fact, that for dinner tonight, I had two slices of the fresh-baked bread and three cups of tea. The bread was so good that I didn't put a thing on it. I used the recipe for the smallest loaf, which makes a one-pound loaf of bread. Just enough for the two of us, so it doesn't sit around too long and not taste freshly baked.

As for the sauce...... I used a jar of the Houston-famous spaghetti sauce that we bought at the downtown Nutcracker Market. I made some meatballs to put in it....... the meatballs were delicious... and the sauce was indeed delicious. I can see why Ken Hoffman raves about it in his Houston Chronicle column. The sauce is nearly as good as my Aunt Dolly's sauce, but I don't think anyone can actually beat her sauce. Aunt Dolly cooks her sauce with at least three kinds of meat in it, and by the time it all sits and simmers on the stove-top for a couple of hours, you have a rich sauce that you can eat with a spoon and never miss the spaghetti.

Speaking of spaghetti, I made that for dinner tonight, but I didn't have any. I had enough carbs with the bread I ate, so I just ignored the spaghetti when it was done. As for the spaghetti sauce, I think my own sauce is pretty good. It's been a good long while since I made a pot of sauce, so I guess I'll do that one of these days. Famous last words: one of these days.

We had rain today.... lots of it. We're also getting a little drop in the temperature. It's been close to 90 for the longest time, and I think this passing rainstorm is going to drop the temperature at least 10 or 15 degrees. Sweater-weather, for sure.

I have piano lessons tomorrow, and I've decided to tell K that I won't be going for lessons during the month of December. There's just too much to do here during those holiday weeks, and I'd rather just stay here and practice old songs rather than go there and learn new ones during such a busy time of the year. I'm sure she'll be disappointed, but I know it's the best thing for me to do. No sense in getting myself stressed out because I don't have time to learn new songs and chords.