Stuck in summer

I know why summer usually leads me into ruts. During the school semester, I know what is expected of me and I can get into a comfortable schedule that keeps me satisfied (enough). During the summer, there are no guidelines, so exact schedule, and especially this summer when I do not know what next year is going to bring, I am feeling so uneasy! Thankfully I have my painting, cooking, and I am looking forward to yoga teacher training. Why do I want my life to be so structured?

This post is going to be a nice summary of the past 2 days in art and food.

I have a large piece of canvas. I tried to create a painting on Monday. I got really frustrated because it looked finished, but I did not like it. I had no idea what to do with it. I had used a lot of paint and a few hours. But I just couldn't stand being in the room as it. So what did I do? I took my jar of Gesso and painted right over it. Yesterday I started over and it slowly turned into the piece you see above. I usually don't like birds, but I painted one anyways. I love this piece. I want to be in the same room as it.

Monday was not a great day for me mentally. As the Mad Hatter says, "I don't like it in here, it is much too crowded!" This painting shows that I am coming out of the bad head space. We will know things get bad when I am not painting or cooking. But neither have happened!

Here are some of my food highlights over the past few days.

A Pancake Breakfast

A stack of chocolate peanutbutter pancakes with greek yogurt and bananas.

BBQ Dinner!

Homemade beer bread.

Brats simmered in beer and then coated in delicious bbq sauce.

Baked beans. By the way, this was my first time working with dried beans. It was so much fun trying my hand at baked beans. They tasted fantastic!!

The bbq meal, in its entirety. Quite the little feast. I was pretty proud of this one!

Salmon Tacos

Salmon all flaked up for the tacos

The spread. Looks good, right?

My second attempt at cooking dried beans. These black beans came out awesome, too! There is definitely a taste difference in fresh beans. They taste slightly earthy and more real. I think I will work with dried beans from now on. It is cheaper and tastes better!

My taco before folding! I love cooking the tortillas by soaking them in egg and milk and then cooking them on a skillet. Its like french toast, but in a tortilla. It works best on the tortillas you buy from a bakery, or homemade ones. It makes the tortilla nice and pliable and really really tasty!

Fresh wheat tortillas

1 cup wheat flour

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tbsp canola oil

1/3 cup warm water

Mix the wheat flour and salt together. Stire in the canola oil. Then stir in the water. You may need to add a little bit more water to ensure that the dough is still a bit wet. Roll into a ball and let sit in the bowl, covered, for 20 minutes.

Knead the dough on a floured surface and divide into 4-5 balls. Cover the balls and refridgerate for at least 20 minutes, or until you are ready to roll them out and cook them.

When you are ready to cook the tortillas, heat a skillet and lightly butter it. Roll out a dough ball until nice and thin and round, and then cook for about 1-2 minutes on each side.

Delicious!

I roasted corn in the oven! So good!

My lunch. I filled one of my tortillas with black beans, pumpkin, and cheese. I also had some cole slaw and the roasted corn.

Dinner tonight: Chicken Wings and Aranitas

The plantain spiders (aranitas) frying up.

Buffalo sauce! Yum.

The wings are amazing! When you steam them for 10 minutes and refridgerate for an hour before roasting them in the oven for 425 F for 40 minutes, they come out so nice and crispy. Alton Brown is a genius for this recipe alone!! I love crispy foods that are not actually fried.

Good things that happened today:

• I found a book I've been wanting forever in the bargain section at Barned and Noble. I bought it!
• Travelzoo had an awesome special to buy a 25 gift certificate to a Dallas restaurant for 2 bucks. So I bought one!
• I am going to start writing for a restaurant review site!
• Amazon gave me a 4 dollar credit Amazon on demand, so I ordered White on Rice! I have been wanting to watch this. It has Lynn from The Actor's Diet  in it.
• I got one of my yoga books in the mail today

Hope your day was good, too!