Remember the Anti-Tigger Shield in this post? Well, here’s why it’s necessary:

That’s Tigger sitting in a bread basket. On a loaf of bread. It was stale bread, so it didn’t bother me, but it’s even more weird that he wants to sit on rock-hard bread.

What, is he roosting?!

A very hungry Mark just came into the library where I am posting this, gnawing on a piece of the very stale bread. “You realize Tigger just laid that, don’t you?”

My homemade chili oil:

My tempeh-making luck ran out and I ended up with another bad batch this weekend. I’m not sure why. The only thing I can think of is that the Ziploc bag was too full and the soybeans therefore layered too deeply. I didn’t weigh the soybeans; I just guessed at the 8 ounces I was going for, but possibly it was more than that and therefore too much. At any rate, here is what tempeh looks like when it doesn’t turn out. It didn’t smell that great either.

I want you to know that I am very careful about the food I buy and I would never, ever buy anything made of wheat flour that had been breached.

Here are two of my tomato plants. The one on the left is Roma and the one on the right is San Marzano. (Mark’s hot peppers are in the background.)

I grow them in Earth Boxes, which my mother-in-law turned me on to and which are great. In fact, here’s the San Marzano plant I put in a regular container:

It’s not nearly as big and healthy. Unfortunately, the Earth Box isn’t doing wonders for the two heirloom varieties I have, Mr Stripy (which I totally bought just because I wanted to grow Tigger Tomatoes) and Brandywine. Those plants don’t look as healthy.

While I was outside photographing the tomatoes, I scanned the yard for anything colorful I could photograph. The only color I could find in the entire yard was this tiger lily. Everything else is green, green, green.

Well, unless you count my tiny little tomato blossom:

Or the incredibly tiny flowers on Tigger’s catnip:

Much of our backyard looks like this:

As you can imagine, we have a lot of problems with pandas! And ninjas.

The cats can’t stand it when we’re outside without them. They sit forlornly at the door and meow piteously.

They often hang out on the patio with us, on leashes, but it was about to starting raining again, so instead of bringing them out, I went back inside and began pondering dinner…in which I hope to feature:

Tigger has barely budged from the wok box. Even when I need to make room on the kitchen island and move the box to the dining room table, he just remains in the box as I carry it. He also purrs loudly while in the box and seems particularly happy and peaceful.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but Tigger hates Brachtune. After 14 years of living together, you’d think he’d have learned to tolerate her, but he still hates her. I don’t know how anyone can possibly hate Brachtune because she’s the sweetest, most good-natured cat on the planet, but Tigger’s a bit of an egomaniac and only likes himself. Brachtune, on the other hand, looks up to Tigger and often mimics his behavior. So when Tigger took a short break from the box this afternoon, I was only half-surprised to see this:

When Tigger then hopped up on the table and caught her, I was pretty sure he was going to smack her around.

Fortunately, Tigger got distracted by something else and Brachtune then decided that sitting in a box was overrated and got out of her own accord.

I am still extremely busy. I got home late from work (although much earlier than my close-to-midnight arrival last night) tonight, so something fast was in order. I’d bought a couple of bunches of basil a few days ago, thinking I would make pesto, and at some point between then and now, I’d thought it would be fun to use sun-dried tomatoes in the pesto, which is exactly what I did. I’m skeptical about calling this “my” recipe because it’s a pretty standard pesto and adding sun-dried tomatoes is certainly not novel, but I’m suffering from lack of posts lately, so I’m putting it up anyway! Toss this with pasta and you can have a meal ready in the time it takes to cook the pasta.

Sun-dried Tomato Pesto

2 cups basil leaves
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, reconstituted in hot water (if using oil-packed, cut back on the olive oil a bit)
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp nutritional yeast
4 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp salt

Soak the sun-dried tomatoes in hot water until soft (5 minutes or so):

Place all ingredients in a blender.

Blend until smooth.

To serve with pasta as I did, place pasta into a bowl, put a heaping tablespoon-sized dollop of pesto upon it, and dribble a little of the pasta-cooking water over it (I scooped some out with a Pyrex measuring cup before dumping into the colander), then stir everything together.

With a glass of much-deserved wine, this was a very fast but elegant way to wind down. I encountered a lot of interference on the way, though, I must confess. See, Tigger LOVES nutritional yeast; if I so much as go near it, he sinks his claws into my arm and drags me closer to him, head-butting me and meowing. So when I wanted to take a picture of it, he, of course, had to involve himself.

Look at his tongue!

And do you think I learned my lesson the first time and gave him some when he demanded it?

No, I did not.

Yes, I finally caved in and gave the poor, neglected cat what he so badly desired:

Then, while setting up the shot of the plated meal, the mischievous tomato-loving Mark seemed determined to ruin my decorative garnish:

Finally I sat down to eat with my book (the new Salman Rushdie, if you’re curious) and was immediately bombarded with Brachtune’s face directly in mine.

You can actually see my bowl of pasta reflected in her eyes!

But I don’t know, there are worse ways to end a day than in the company of Rushdie, Brachtune, and a big glass of wine, so I won’t complain.

And the pesto must have been good because I caught Mark dipping the extra tomato wedges into the leftover pesto after cleaning his bowl!

No recipes tonight, just a photo of Tigger inspecting my haul of produce:

And my homemade kaiser rolls, from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice (of course):

I’ve made the kaiser rolls several times before. They’re so much better than store-bought. Yesterday I made the regular version; tonight I made half whole-wheat. They just came out of the oven though so I’m not sure how they turned out.