Bountiful Basket Saturday

We had two solid weeks of steady rain, accumulating to about 6 inches. The past three days of sun were glorious and well needed. The sun shone all day, the birds sang, the humidity was gone, and everything was green, green, green. April in Georgia is simply stupendous.

At 4am the rain began again. I don't mind really, my plan for today was to pick up a Bountiful Basket and use the oven to roast whatever is in it, plus the butternut squash I got last time. And chick peas. If you haven't had roasted chick peas, you're missing out! They make a filling and tidy little snack.

My monthly Tea Time magazine is filled with tea history, serving ideas, and recipes for cute little bites for your afternoon tea. One recipe caught my eye: English Pea Salad in frilled phyllo cups. Phyllo cups were on sale at the store so I am going to make a tea for myself Sunday afternoon, using the Whittard Tea Clipper set with rose hip tea and the pea salad cups. I'm fancy.

I've enjoyed this week's challenge at Pixlr, post-editing photos using their newest overlay pack, "Gibson." I've favorited Clark and Constellation as the best of these for my tastes. I notice on the Pixlr blog the archive of Gibson entries almost uniformly use the birds. I like the birds but man, it's just as easy to go outside and actually take a photo of birds. So for my entry I entertained myself by using a photo of an actual bird with the other Gibson overlays. I posted two of them earlier this week. The lines are phone wires.

Here are some more post-processing editing efforts.

I really like the 'Metal" overlay in the Default pak.

Yes. I caved. Here are birds from Gibson. I liked how they reminded me of the neon steam circles, changing into birds once set free from the coffee cup.

It's a few hours later now and I've gotten the Basket. It contained cukes (which I promptly gave away) mangoes, honeydew, apples, a lot of great looking broccoli, orange peppers, spaghetti squash, onions, potatoes, and lettuce. I probably forgot a thing or two.

I roasted some of the broccoli, butternut squash I had from last time, peppers, and the spaghetti squash. The spaghetti squash is so hard that once I get my cleaver a quarter inch into the rind, I can't get it to move in more nor can I get it out. I've taken to going outside at the walkway to the front door and smashing it on the pavement. With the knife stuck in there, I simply lift it entirely and then crash it to the ground, Even then, it's a cement rind. The cookbook wasn't kidding when it said "the rind is seriously hard". But I must look pretty funny out there...smashing pumpkins squash.

Have a good day everyone!