If you can't stand the heat...

... turn the bleedin' oven off!

For the first time since October, it was actually warm in my kitchen. Dave and I have officially survived this house for one year. *Scattered Applause* I know, it's hard to believe, especially since the place is a seive and has no central air. We're thinking of buying a house, and if we do, I'm going to go mad with a caulking gun. We're going to re-insulate everything and make the sucker totally energy efficient. The only thing I'm concerned about is that if we move to a house out of our current neighborhood, we have to change gyms. And we might have to reconfigure our commutes. Two very undesirable situations. I like our commute, I like my gym, I like my yoga classes... Harrumph...

But, back to the kitchen. Saturday, after early yoga, a little inspired shopping and pulling weeds and tending my garden, I developed a vegetarian gumbo recipe! I call it, "Joanna's vegetarian post-modern gumbo" for it's use of white wine, vegetarian sausage, whole okra, bits of Boca crumbles, a white roux, (made it myself, thankyouverymuch!) halved new potatoes with long strips sweet onions, whole garlic cloves and sauteed red peppers. All that stewed up with cayenne pepper, gumbo file and cumin with a bay leaf and some sage. It was served over a bed of herbed brown rice. YUMMY!

Not to be outdone, Sunday was quite the clip with a thorough home yoga practice and a run through the neighborhood with Fitzgerald. I hung out with Dave for a bit, trying my salmon dip on for size again (could have only been better with walnuts and some fresh parmesan), went to the market to pick up a few things, and then I got to baking:

First, from-scratch basil tomato pizza with marinated tofu


Then a loaf of whole wheat bread (it actually turned out!!!)


And from-scratch key lime pie


That was my first attempt (successful!!!) at making meringue, which is the golden and white topping on the key lime pie. That little knob to the left is a key lime, and must've squeezed God knows how many of the suckers to make the darn pie. Totally labor intensive, but well worth the effort.

I hope you folks are salivating, I'll show you what it looks like from the inside tonight! The gorgeous thing is setting firmly in our fridge, awaiting our own just desserts!