Eating Bon-Bons and Watching TV

That's what my DH says I'm going to be doing whenever I get some time home alone. RIGHT! Today my family headed for an airshow. While I enjoy the Blue Angels as much as the next Mom, I had things to do here.

My dear friend Dana brought a bucket of cucumbers to MNO (Mom's Nite Out) Thursday. I was so excited! So today I made Bread & Butter pickles with them. This family goes through a ton of these in a year. So I'll have to make another batch--or three. But that's okay, these are special Dana's-Own Homegrown Cucumber Pickles. THANKS, DANA!

That wasn't enough to keep me busy (my pickle recipe calls for the cukes and onions to sit for 3 hours before you process them), so I made a chocolate cake for the family reunion that is tomorrow afternoon. I got the recipe from The Pioneer Woman. Go check her out if you've never visited her before. (www.thepioneerwoman.com) She has some of the best recipes. (And her pictures are way better than mine.) But my The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever. looks so yummy! I really wanted to test a piece, but it's not my family's family reunion. It's hubby's family. If it was my family, they'd totally understand the little corner missing. But that probably wouldn't fly so well with DH's family. I'm resisting.

I scored a quart of sour cherries at the Farmer's Market this morning. So once the cake was in the oven, I pitted the cherries.

Not quite enough there for jam--bummer--but definitely enough for Sour Cherry Upside-Down Cake. Yeah! I LOVE this stuff! This recipe is from the Yarn Harlot. (www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/) She has a sour cherry tree outside her home and posted a funny--of course--story about it along with the cherry upside-down cake recipe. I wasn't a huge cherry fan until I tried this recipe.

Now when I flipped the cake out of the pan, a little bit stuck to the bottom. Oh yeah, I definitely scraped the pan clean. Just as a test. It's as good as I remembered it to be. I'll save the rest for my weary family. They will get home eventually. Apparently the traffic leaving the airshow is horrendous. But I'm told they had a great day. So did I.