I'm Totally Domestic

I guess I'm just going to take this blogging thing one day at a time, so on with the post...

I am totally enthralled with my domesticity today. I pulled out my Pillsbury Slow Cooker Recipes: 140 New Ways to Have Dinner Ready and Waiting! cookbook the other day and chose a couple recipes for our meals this week. At this moment I have Vegetable, Bean and Ham Soup slow cooking in my little crock pot. Yes, I do.

I actually did prep work for the recipe last night. LAST NIGHT, PEOPLE! This from the girl who just a few short months ago would buy those completely cooked meals in a bag in the frozen food section, which only required 15 minutes of heat up in a skillet. Need I say more about what this means?

First I had to sort the dried beans. Huh? Sort the beans? Was I sorting them by size? Color? I had to call my mom about that. And is it any wonder that I've never worked with a dried bean in my life? Come to find out, she's never met a dried bean either, but she seemed to know enough to explain about the bean sorting. I came to learn that there are sometimes stones (yes, stones) in the dried beans. Can someone explain this to me?

So back to the prep work. I sorted. I soaked. I sliced my carrots and celery. I set out all my ingredients on the counter to be ready for the crock pot this morning before I left for work. It was so... so... freeing. I'm makin' soup, people!

Of course, what else is going to nicely complement a warm, filling, ham and bean soup? Bread! Oh yeah! So when I got home from work I decided it was time to make another loaf of bread in my new breadmaker. I wanted to try my new wheat flour, so I chose the Honey Wheat bread recipe. So I'm just 1 hour and 15 minutes away from a lovely slice of homemade goodness. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Yes, let it be known that Liz is totally domestic!