I’m not going to lie to you, but yesterday was a hard day. A year ago Sunday two wonderful things happened to me: I started my 6 month sabbatical and I (with all my family) saw Paul McCartney in concert. Both events changed me as a person in ways I can’t even begin to explain, so Sunday was there was some reflecting and serious sadness going on…and that’s just the truth.

To celebrate our first meeting with our pal Paul, I made a meal from one of Linda McCartney’s cookbooks and homemade cornbread with the Sanford’s baked beans.

At the last moment I decided to add a swirl of honey to the top of the corn bread and it made a crispy, sweet coating…very interesting.

Sanford baked beans is a recipe from our beloved and neighborly-basically-family members, yes, you guessed it, the Sanford’s. John and I leave out the bacon which might drive one of the Sanford’s a little crazy, but hey…we just don’t dig on swine.

Linda’s meal all took place on the grill. It involved marinated vegetables and veggie sausage kabob and egg dipped, garlic stuffed cornmeal potatoes.

Here’s pictures from our grilling process– John was the man in charge of the keeping the fires burning.

pre-grilling/ post-boiling

Ok, here’s the story on the potatoes. The Linda McCartney cookbook I have is used and the cook who owned it before me took detailed notes on what was good or not and why and altered the recipes. If you’ve read Harry Potter then you’ll get the “Half-Blood vegetarian” feel of this next section. The cook noted that these potatoes were “bland, despite the garlic, but the cornmeal crust had a nice crunch.” I thought, “I can add garlic powered and pepper to the cornmeal and that will solve the bland issue.

Dang it! It didn’t work. I have to remember the Half-blood vegetarian is always right.

For dessert we decided to walk down to Sonic for ‘Blasts.”

I got Oreo and John got Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup…can you tell which is which?

They were both almost too melt-y to eat, so we ate the whipped cream off the top and put them in freezer to “reconstitute themselves” as John said. Guess what’s for dessert tonight!