Checking your calendar, making dinner and pie.

Yesterday was my hubby's birthday. It was also the day I scheduled an appointment for my daughter, a must run to the feed store and an outing that took us an hour away from home. We left the house at 9:30 and did not return until 2:30. Which I  know isnt terrible late but that gave us 2 hours to get birthday dinner and coconut cream pie done by 4:30 when hubby gets home from work and gives the pie enough time to set. I also forgot to say since this is the summer of home makeover my daughter is trying get her room painted and back in order before the end of the week so she can go visit her aunt. You may think painting a room isnt too terribly hard but we switched room with her so she inherited a room with barn red walls. its taken some serious primer and paint! I love the color she chose and told her it looked like she was painting the room with butter.

When its your birthday in our house you can have what ever you want for dinner and of course dessert. There is no complaining when someone picks something thats not your favorite. My husband always wants a steak. So I grilled a steak with baked potatoes and made salad from our garden. It was really hard for me to buy baking potatoes when I had potatoes at home that we grew ourselves but they are not giant monster potatoes and I was trying to go for the look of Logans Roadhouse. The meal is pretty easy with just setting your steaks out about 30 minutes before putting them on the grill and season them with salt and pepper. Grill a few minutes on each side until your preferred doneness.  Unless we have a fire going outside I always cheat with potatoes.  I love to wrap them in foil and put them in the hot ashes to cook. Since we did not have a fire going yesterday and that we do not own a microwave to cook potaotes in,  I boiled them until they were done and put them on the grill to crisp up the skin. I did make a compound butter. That was the most technical thing I made for dinner and thats okay with me.

Compound Butter

1 cup of heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons of fresh chives
2 garlic cloves
salt to taste

Put cream in food processor and turn on and let the magic happens. This can take up to 15 minutes. The cream with start to thicken like whipped topping, then will start to look like liquid again, finally the little clumps of butter start bonding together and you are left with butter and milk. Strain the butter milk out if the butter and save for baking. With the butter run iced cold water over it to get any milk still in there. You can use a spoon to kind of squish it around. Add your seasonings, wrap in parchment paper or plastic wrap and roll into a log and chill.

I am super lucky to have amazing kids who have always been great at helping out. My son is on a baking kick and I am not going to stop him. He wanted to make his dads pie. That was a huge help while I was doing all the prep work for dinner. I think he did an amazing job considering this is his first ever coconut cream pie. You can fine the recipes he used under the picture.

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/no-roll-pie-crust-recipe

https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/easy-coconut-cream-pie

One of my recent goals has been to use the reminders and calendar on my phone. Even though everything I wanted to get accomplished yesterday did happen it was kind of tight. I had a quick morning outing planned today that just got cancelled so I think I am free for the rest of today. I think it would have been wiser to have moved some of my things yesterday to today. Just like with anything new you try it takes time to work itself out. Cut yourself some slack, dont give up and learn to laugh at yourself.

Last night I was brushing my teeth when someone needed in the only bathroom we have. So I came out and finished brushing in the kitchen. Then that person started taking a shower.  I wanted to put my toothbrush somewhere safe so I chose on top of the fridge. This morning I have been hunting all over the place for my toothbrush. Maybe I didnt survive yesterday as well as I thought.