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Checkout time was noon, and I got out of my room at 12:05. Then I got to wait about 10 minutes for an empty elevator going down. People were not agreeable to share an elevator with my bike and its 2 spare inches. I actually had to rush to get packed up by noon.

I adjusted my kickstand mount that was working loose. I stopped for lunch at the same bagel place I ate at yesterday. I just wasn’t ready to get riding in the 90+ degree heat. It seems fine when you are already riding, but hard to get going when you have been in air conditioning for the morning. I think it is much like slowly raising the water temperature to boil a frog, where tossing them in a boiling pot will just make them jump out.
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This weekend I messed around with making pizza again. My last few pizzas have been Chicago Style deep dish, but Amy wanted some New York Style thin crust pizza. I decided to try my own sauce this time. I’ve tried to use spaghetti sauce in the past and had to spice it like crazy to get it close to a passable runny pizza sauce. It seemed like it would be easier to just start with tomatoes and go from there.
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I’ve had to trim the Cilantro quite a bit to allow everything to catch up. The Basil has grown with a vengeance during the last week. I’ve had to cut down the chives two as well. The only herb not growing strong yet is the Oregano. It looks like it will be another week before it really starts going. It is interesting watching the herbs during all the stages of growth. I’ve never looked at Thyme much and just noticed the purple color on the underside of the leaves and bright green on top. Can’t wait until these are ready for continuous harvest. They would have helped my pizza sauce that I made today.

The jails in Palmyra, VA are pretty nice. The officer arrested me around 2 AM and confiscated all of my gear. Just kidding! I didn’t have any problems with camping at the boat ramp last night. Traffic on 15 started to slow around 10 PM and I fell asleep shortly after sending out my emails. I woke up just before 6 and started packing up. I left Palmyra at 6:30 and started my race with traffic to Charlottesville.
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We had over a friend and her daughter this evening, so I was given the job of entertaining this young whirlwind. I decided to make Beef Stroganoff with homemade Egg Noodles. The noodles are easy, just flour and egg in a food processor, as described in this post. She really enjoyed watching the entire process from food processor through the pasta cutters. I made very thin fettuccine style noodles.
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Amy really surprised me with this gift at Christmas. She was not sure if I would like it, so she only purchased 1 AeroGarden. I recently ordered 3 more, because it is a blast.

“What is the AeroGarden?” you say. An AeroGarden is a cool little inside Aeroponic Garden (similar to Hydroponic, but the roots are in 100% humidity air rather than water) made by AeroGrow. You have 7 seed pods per unit and just put in the pods, fill up the water to the line, add the two starter nutrient tablets and plug it in. The water automatically pumps into the sponges holding the seeds and the clear plastic “bio-dome” cups keep moisture in until the seed sprouts. Once the leaves form, you remove the clear plastic cover and let it grow. And grow they do, up into the compact fluorescent grow lamps.
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I woke up at the crack of dawn, 5:45. I had packed up everything but my sleeping gear before I went to bed, because I wanted to secure as much of it as I could from any animal or other visitors. I was out of the campground before 6. I still couldn’t find anyone to check in with, so I dropped of a couple singles in the slot near the closed sign, which I felt was far more than the accommodations were worth. The country store just out of the campground had hot biscuit sandwiches. I enjoyed a country ham, egg, and cheese as I hoped for the temperature to rise. It did not, so I geared up for the downhills in 40 degree wind.
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This Christmas, my family decided to do something we had not done for nearly 20 years: paint cookies. Instead of using our traditional recipe for painted sugar cookies, one of my sisters purchased ready made dough. They tasted a little better, but were harder to paint than I remember.
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Dark Chocolate Dipped Ginger Altoids. Yes, it sounds weird. I don’t understand how they made it through marketing. I don’t think they had any type of focus group for these. I have a rule that I will try anything once. That is if there isn’t a high likelihood of death. I think this is why blowfish is so expensive, for the malpractice insurance for those that die after eating it. I don’t plan on trying blowfish any time soon. But I’m game for Dark Chocolate Dipped Ginger Altoids.
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I always loved when Mom made this Sour Cream Pound Cake. The crust is delightful. I finally made my first try of this earlier this year. I used a stoneware bundt pan and that was a mistake. The cake came out, sans crust. So I had to scrape it out to eat it. So was it really a mistake?

I’ve had my best luck making this in a standard loaf pan.

Serves: 12
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