It's here! My first task? Boil water. I think I can handle that.

I was in my kitchen, cleaning, and scrubbing my poor electric wok that had been soaking overnight. I have determined that it is a goner. The coating is coming off, and EVERYTHING sticks to it. It's seen plenty of good use, but it's time to put it out to pasture and get a decent wok. This was actually a difficult decision for me, as I don't have a gas stove anymore (and I'm not likely to get one in the future) so a standard wok with the curved bottom is out. I poked around on the internet for a while, and finally came up with the Joyce Chen 14-inch flat bottom wok. This one's actually been in my wish list for about six months now. I've read really good reviews on it, too. It's carbon steel, not non-stick, so once I get it seasoned it should last forever.  I guess it's a bit of a bear to remove the factory coating and get the initial seasoning on it, but once that's accomplished it's supposed to be a good solid wok. Plus, it's currently on sale at Amazon for $29.    Now I'm just going to have promise to cook stir-fry every night for the next month, or I'm definitely going to hear about it. I guess I'd better get some more rice.

This was delicious. Yes, that was fresh baked bread. Yum.

Well, Will brought home the sickness from school (the girl sitting next to him has been coughing all week), and we're all in our pajamas taking it easy today. Will is the worst, he has a cough that really sounds painful. I need to go to the store and get some expectorant, but right now he's living on cough drops. Brian even stayed home from work today, and he hardly ever gets sick. So far I'm not really bad, just a stuffy nose and a mild cough. Here's hoping it doesn't get worse. I had enough energy this morning to put some soup in the crock-pot; I had beans soaking last night so all I had to do was add the ham hocks and the veggies and broth. It smells really good in here from cooking the vegetables. I'm going to be hungry all day. Hopefully, I'll have the energy to toss together a batch of easy bread before dinner tonight. Bean soup without fresh bread is just not the same.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been in a nasty fibro flare, and haven't been up to doing much of anything. Fortunately, I've been feeling better the past few days, so I'm not only up to posting, I'm prepping dinner! My friend with the garden has loaded me down with tomatoes and peppers and basil and Swiss chard and grapes (oh my!), so I decided to put some of it to use this evening. I'm going to make chicken fajitas again, this time with a large selection of peppers. I don't even remember all the types. Here's a quick peek in the bag: I chopped up the tomatoes she sent home with me, plus about 4 assorted peppers and an onion. Added some salt, cilantro, garlic and lemon juice (I'm out of lime juice - sad) and now have a lovely salsa to go with dinner tonight. Yum! I'll post pictures of the finished product later... right now it's sitting in a Ziploc container in the fridge getting cold and melding all of those lovely flavors together. I'm not even hungry and I'm looking forward to dinner already!