Had the people over for dinner last night.  The cherry tomatoes had one last magnificent hurrah and produced 60 more so I made easy tomato jam via the Suburban Soapbox.  I scaled the ingredients back a bit because I didn't have big tomatoes or as many as required.  The important part about making it is to let it boil a lot and make sure it is in a very non-stick pot.  It has to thicken up - the sugar has to candy a little and then it is done.

I paired it with goat cheese and thin crackers.  I got some port salut cheese as well - a soft cheese with a decent taste.  Both went over well.  Once you add the tomato jam, it is just the sweet topping to round it out perfectly.

I also made bread rolls, the main course was beef.  It's fall (y'all), so why not make it hearty?  These corn-fed midwesterners need their carbohydrates.  I found the recipe in a small cookbook from my mother, circa 1980.  I love her old cookbooks.  This one is English and was hard to translate.  The dough was too sticky, so I had to add more flour during the first kneading & set to rise a 2nd time for about 30 minutes.

I used a big bread bowl not pictured here to mix everything together and then transferred over to a glass bowl greased with olive oil.

Kneading post-2nd rise.  Do not over-knead it or they will be extra-crusty-tough.  Rolled into a long tube.  Cut sections.  Every place I have lived before my current house did not have a countertop I could use as a giant cutting board.  Now, I am a spoiled, American brat.  It is handy, but I still got a lot of flour on the floor (and me).

Had I been a more practiced bread-maker, I could have added a brushing of egg to make the tops golden.  I might have made them all the exact length and shape, too.  Again, do not let your inexperience concern you.  The point is, just make stuff.  Try things out.  I greased the pans with olive oil because it has a higher temp threshold before it turns everything black above it.

Right out of the oven, these were really good.  They were soft but very crusty (over-kneader!) at dinner.  Good yeasty character, but not overwhelmingly-so. 

​It's not my favorite version yet.  They pack well for reheating in the microwave for 8-10 seconds.  Hot butter to finish.

It was a bright day, perfect to try out more cyanotypes.  It took me an hour of painstaking knife cuts to get this just the way I wanted it.  The paper thickness was great.  The liquid was not fresh and did not produce the deep, vivid blueprint look I was aiming for.  I'm going to try it on cotton next chance I get.

Saturday: stood in the sun volunteering in the morning and felt a little touched in the head afterwards.  Later, the terrification of unregulated fairground rides with hot air balloons dotting the sky and a 14 year old screaming, "Let's ride the Scrambler!!!"  + something icy on rt. 66.

​Four hours of driving, one neighborly rescue when the tank desk, as it is aptly named became way too heavy to carry, and a lot of organization later, and here it is!  The chair and lamp were my grandfather's.  I have not turned on the light in 5 years.  It is still going strong after being on this earth since the 1960's.

Have you ever been so tired you washed the tomatoes you picked from the garden (in your pocket, in the washer).  That was last week.  Today, this is 90% of the remaining cherry tomatoes from the garden.  The summer is winding down, with great regret, I can tell.  She is holding on with blasts of heat and bouts of fitful rain and chill.  It'll be Halloween soon.  Yes, it takes 3 months to get the faux spiderwebs out of the bushes after application, but it's spooky and why be mundane?