Day off = day of food

Our day today was completely centered around food. Lisa, Christie (Lisa's sister), and I took a drive to visit our favorite Asian grocery, and our favorite Swiss bakery is conveniently next door. It would be a shame to buy rice and spring roll wrappers and not pick up a pastry (or 2...ok, 6) at the same time. We then went blueberry picking :


Later that day Lisa made bread:

These turned out so well, perhaps her best attempt yet. Wonderfully chewy, crispy but not too tough on the outside. So good. I think I'll keep her. We also made eggplant parmesan for dinner. We bake the eggplant instead of frying it, and layer it with tomato sauce, parmesan, and peas. Apparently this is a more Sicilian version of eggplant parm, but it is nice and light, and very easy. I'd show you a picture, but we ate it before I thought to take one.

To finish off Christie is in the process of making homemade strawberry basil ice cream. We are using our lime basil, so I think it is going to turn out really tasty. She made coffee ice cream last night and we were all rather impressed so we are trying it again. The recipe is from a recent article in our Fine Cooking magazine -- they give you all these really crazy ideas for flavor combinations. Pine nut olive oil, whiskey gingerbread, lavender vanilla, orange Earl Grey. I'm not so sure about the pine nut, but the others sound yummy.