And She's Off

Not only did our Princess turn sixteen earlier this week, but she also got her driver's license! Right now she is in town running errands and doing the grocery shopping for her own birthday dinner! Any thing to be able to drive. I remember being that way, too. I don't remember how long it lasts though, so I will be taking full advantage of it while I can. Not only is it allowing her a little more respnsibility and freedom, but we are getting a lesson in today, too. She has a grocery list and $55.00 cash, now she has to make it work! She will do fine, though. She has been shopping with me more than once when we knew how much money we had to spend and then we had to go from there.

We will be having her birthday dinner tomorrow night. If you know us very well, then you know the birthday person gets to pick what they want for their birthday dinner. Our Princess wants fried fish and a big salad with all the vegies in it. I'm thinking she'll also come home with some parmesan cheese for the salad. For dessert she wants a certain kind of boysenberry ice cream that I have bought for her as a treat a few times in the past. That is to expensive to buy for all of us, so I think I will make a cake for the rest of us. Oh, I can check the rhubarb and see how that is doing. Maybe the rest of us will have rhubarb crunch or some kind of yummy rhubarb thing I feel like making.

Here is a puffed oven pancake that I made for breakfast earlier this week. Look at the bottom of the pancake and you will see a black ring. That is the edge of my cast iron skillet, now you have an idea of how much it puffs up! While that was in the oven, I simmered some sliced apples in a little bit of apple juice, sugar and cinnamon. When the apples were just starting to soften up, I thickened them up with cornstarch and water and added a dab of butter. When the pancake came out of the oven, we poured the apple gunk over the top of it. I'm not a big fan of cooked apples, but even I have to admit that was a good way to start out the day.