I find refuge in cooking. Maybe you're the same way. It's a balm for when I've had a bad week at work, bad week at home, whatever. Unfortunately, it's very hard to cook when my kitchen is in shambles. The caulking is about a third of the way done, so everything is still either stacked up in my bedroom or slowly taking over my island. That's when I bring out my little helpers. No, not the puppies, small kitchen appliances!

The first little helper is my electric kettle. This wonderful gift from my friend Jennifer is probably the most commonly used item in my kitchen. I use it literally everyday, mostly to make tea. Big surprise. :-) Here's the recipe it helped me with.

Lavender Lemonade
2-1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp dried lavender flowers
2-1/2 cup cold water
1 cup lemon juice
Ice cubes

In a large saucepan, bring water and sugar to a boil. Remove from the heat; add lavender. Cover and let stand for 1 hour.

Strain, discarding lavender. Stir in cold water and lemon juice. Serve over ice. Yield: 6 servings.

Editor's Note: Look for dried lavender flowers in spice shops. If using lavender from the garden, make sure it hasn’t been treated with chemicals.

I think you can see where I'm going with this. I was very pleasantly surprised to find out just how fast sugar dissolves in boiling water from an electric kettle. It was pretty much instantaneous, which meant that I could steep the lavender pretty much immediately as well.

I made this for my Tastefully Simple party that Heather came down for last week. It's very refreshing, perfect for summer, and smells like heaven. Then again, I'm very partial to lavender. By "very partial" I of course mean "would deck my entire house in it if Mike would let me". I fully recommend serving this as a refresher at your next pool party or other summer party.

What about some proper food, though? No worries. That's where my food processor comes in. Now, I didn't make the entire recipe below, just the sauce, sans the nuts. Mike requested no nuts.

Ricotta Ravioli With Spinach Pesto
2 cup fresh ricotta
1 cup toasted hazelnuts, chopped, divided
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 lemon, zested and juiced
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1 (12 oz) pkg wonton wrappers
1 egg white, lightly beaten
4 cup spinach, loosely packed
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/2 cup olive oil
Special equipment: Food processor

In a small bowl, mix together ricotta, 1/4 cup hazelnuts, nutmeg, lemon zest, and salt and pepper to taste. Lay several wonton wrappers on a work surface. Scoop a generous tablespoon of the ricotta filling into the center of each wrapper, and brush outside edges with egg white. Lay another wonton wrapper on top of each, and press firmly with fingertips to press out air and seal ravioli. Transfer ravioli to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat with remaining wonton wrappers and filling, making 18 to 20 ravioli total. Cover baking sheet with a damp paper towel and transfer to refrigerator to set up, about 30 minutes.

To make the spinach pesto:

In a food processor, combine remaining 3/4 cup hazelnuts, lemon juice, spinach, garlic, parmesan, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste and puree until smooth.

Fill a large pot with water, salt liberally, and bring to a boil. Cook ravioli in three batches, until they are cooked and float to the top, about 2 to 3 minutes. Strain and transfer to serving bowls with a dollop of spinach pesto.

I can't speak for the ravioli part of this recipe, as I made angel hair pasta instead. Two to three minutes in boiling water. You can see my logic, I'm sure. The pesto sauce, however, is lovely. It's very light and bright and healthy to boot. Plus, it's so green! No, really, my pasta was all green after being tossed in it. The one drawback: Lots of little bits of spinach stuck all over your teeth afterwards. Still, very yummy.

I haven't even touched on the slow cooker, blender, stand mixer, or microwave. Fear not, friends, for even when you kitchen is in shambles, dinner is just a small appliance away.

Tuesday morning - my first morning back from TN with the kids, found me outside with the boys. While they created more chalk masterpieces on the driveway, I decided that my geraniums needed some water. So I pull them down.

For those of you who have 'liked' Straight Stitches on facebook, then you know what is about to come. I apologize for the redundancy of this post, but figured that I should at least bring everyone up to speed. :)

As I am watering my geraniums, I notice that one of them as a lot of grass and crap in it. So I take a closer look.

Here's what I found.
Do you see it?

Let's take a closer look...

Yep, there are three little eggs in my hanging basket.

And crap! I've just watered them. See the water in the nest? Well I gently tip the basket this way and that to get all the water out without moving the eggs. And I did a durn good job of it too. :)

Then I can't remember which side of the porch the basket came from. Crap!

I go in the house and hollar up to Steve, who was still sleeping, and he grumpily tells me that it was down at the far side of the porch.

So I quickly put the basket back at the end of the porch and spend like the next day praying that the Momma bird comes back to take care of her babies, because I will feel like total crap if she doesn't.

So now Dev and I have a science project. Momma bird did come back. Dev startled her yesterday while coming back inside yesterday from playing, and he said she flew out of the basket. We had to go outside and take a look at her. I didn't think to bring the camera, but after doing some google searches.

We think our new neighbors are house finches, and when I played the bird song, yep, definitely what we have outside.

So now I have a new problem. How do I water my flowers now?

So over the next two weeks we're on baby bird watching duty. I know the nest and the eggs were not in the flowers last week, before I left on my trip, so it gives us a pretty good timeline and hopefully in about two weeks we'll have a trio of new baby birds. :)

See you guys later!
Heather

We got a late start - 10:30 to be exact.
And decided to take a  road trip that was 12 hours long.

Maybe not our best thought since it was 11 when we got home, but we saw some terrific things along the way.

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