From the kitchen of...

I wish you could smell my house right now. On very rare occasions, the scent from the back room where the litter boxes are would melt plastic but usually, there's no scent. It smells like, um, house. The diffuser is only in a certain area of the living room and I like that my whole house doesn't smell like a pine forest. There's a time and a place for that. When I change the sheets on the bed, I spray them with this lavender bedding spray. For a time, my bedroom and the hallway smell heavily of lavender. But when it's diffused, I climb into a fresh bed smelling ever so inviting and promoting a good night's sleep.

I'm still baking. In the oven right now is a Chocolate Gingerbread Cake. The batter was incredible; spicy, smooth, chocolatey. And the aroma of the baking cake is filling the house now. It's intense, inviting and chocolatey. It's got to cool completely before I can partake of a slice. I have ice cream, although it's not straight vanilla which is what this smell tells me I should have. Oh well. The grocery is 5 minutes from the office, less if I make the light. I did say I needed oatmeal, bananas and blueberries.

I used up all the blackstrap molasses to make this cake. Molasses is one of those items that you buy and then rarely use. If you make gingerbread cookies every Christmas, maybe you use it faster than me. I have a marinade recipe for chicken that uses molasses and I gradually worked the bottle down to the cup I needed for this cake. I don't think I'll replace it right away. I'll do without until I really can't stand not having any in the cupboard.

And why do I have a can of cling peaches in pear juice? The obvious answer is that I was going to make something but didn't. I don't care for peaches. I'm thinking I should just open the can and dump the contents into the compost bin. I won't use them. If I was interested in peach cobbler, I would buy fresh or, barring that, frozen. Recycling them is probably the best thing I can do.

Muffins will have to wait until later in the week. I have to clean up the kitchen first. And, I'm going to have to put the cake slices in the freezer in the basement. I have filled the above the fridge freezer with muffins and two kinds of brownies.

I finally opened the box of tea my sister gave me for Christmas. This Christmas Blend is a combination of Assam, Keemun, Jasmine, Ceylon and Sumatra teas. I drink all those alone so it stands to reason I'd like this and I do. It's packaged by Stash Tea. It was the perfect accompaniment to "Add the molasses mixture in thirds alternating with the flour mixture."

It's been a good weekend.

Beverage: Christmas Morning tea

Deb