Next Best Thing to Rome

My head is swimming right now. It's 11:08 PM and I should be sleeping. But I can't. Not when my head is swimming with recipes. You see, the past 4 days have been filled with Christmas parties, planning what to bring (food wise and gift wise), and grocery shopping. Oh yes, and the orthodontist appointments... I'll have to share about that later.

Now I find myself with a FREE schedule for the next 3 days!!! It almost didn't end up that way. MacGyver is going to Rome, Italy tomorrow and coming back Wednesday. I was going with him until 2 hours ago - until I decided that it would be too busy to leave the children and house just before Christmas. Also, we wouldn't return until 6 PM Wednesday, which is precisely the time SaSa must be at church to be an angel usher for the Christmas Eve service. Oh, and also to practice playing the handbells with KK and two other girls from church. I also should prepare the house for next weekend when we have a family reunion and are hosting 10 of the family here... and wash the dirty laundry. So I guess I'm not completely free the next 3 days... But mostly...

So I've spent the last hour on Mama JJ's cooking blog links. I am SOOOO INSPIRED! If it wasn't so late I believe I'd start cooking and baking right now! Have you seen her sourdough bread? You must have a look. Try www.mamasminutia.blogspot.com. I actually tasted one of those sourdough buns - it was like eating a bite of heaven! I plan to learn to make that in 2009. It'll be my 'branching out with bread' recipe. All I make right now is Oatmeal Bread, which is our family favorite. But I think it's wise to shake things up every now and again - don't you!?

I've decided over the next three days I MUST make Peppermint Bark (I can just taste it from seeing the picture on Orangette's blog). I thought I was done with sweets after the butter cookies I made last week. They were a new recipe for me and oh. Oh my! They were soooo gooood - I ate 7 in one afternoon! I decided right then and there that I wouldn't make anything else that was so delicious and tempting to eat. I packaged up those butter cookies and banished them to the freezer. Hah! I thought I had temptation beat - but it turns out we've had to take a couple out hear and there... just for a nibble. I believe there are - oh - about 7 cookies left. I might have to make some more...

Tomorrow I plan to bake foccacia bread topped with tomatoes and goat cheese along with fried goat cheese (which has some fancy name I can't pronounce from a blog name I'll have to look up again). Can you tell I have goat cheese in my fridge right now? I need to eat it up because I discovered some incredible, melt in your mouth, Olive Garden saucy tasting cheese at a Christmas Party yesterday. It's from Costco! Which means I can have it just as soon as I drive there. But... I can't justify buying more cheese until I use up what I have.

Now do you understand why I'm so excited that I can't sleep? I have 3 days to try new recipes. Make new melt-in-my-mouth sweet things to taste and banish to the freezer. And to eat a fair bit of goat cheese. No more Christmas parties to think of - although they were all really fun. No homeschooling for the next 2 weeks. No orthodontist appointments to determine how we build our day.

I feel like I've just been given a day at the spa!

Oh, and MacGyver is going to bring back some pasta and olive tapinade from Italy for me. I don't know if it'll be any better than what we can buy here but it sure is exciting to think of!