When I Need Healing...

Home-baked French Bread, Ratatouille and Apple Preserve I have to admit that my work has been pretty stressful. But I also have to admit that I'm better off now -- compared to how I was a year ago... in September 2006. Now I have days off more irregularly but more frequently, and still I'm making more money. And I got used to getting up early. No more insomnia! So I'm not complaining. Nevertheless, there are some days that I feel stressed out at the end of the day, and hear my inner voice saying, "I need healing!!" And I go through the list of "things that heal me" in my mind. Fortunately I have a variety of things included in the list, and yesterday morning I went for two of them: 1) hearing something simmering in the kitchen and 2) enjoying the sweet aroma from the oven. I was lazy to put everything on one plate, but you have to give me credit for making (almost) everything from scratch. Yep, I baked the bread myself, based on this recipe. It turned out flavorful -- very flavorful, and quite chewy. (I guess I got impatient again and my bread was not leavened enough.) :P But the bread tasted very good with both ratatoille and apple preserve, so I was satisfied. I also made this asparagus soup from scratch. You think I got sort of carried away? Maybe. But it was sooooooooo good and worth the trouble! :) Apple Preserve I replaced half of the amount of white sugar with brown sugar, so the preserve turned out brownish like this. And the taste was... Mmmm... It was excellent with yogurt. Yes, I felt so good after this brunch. Taking these photos kept me a little busy, but it was worth it -- they will heal me when I need healing but don't have time to cook/bake like this. Oh, one question to those who are in Japan: Are stores running out of bananas in your neighborhood? I tried two supermarkets last night and two other stores this evening, but all of them were out of bananas! What happened?! Is another health craze going on now? Categories: Western-inspired