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It’s late January 2025, and I’m finally getting ready to catch up on the blog. I can’t believe how late I am on my recaps. The autumn was BUSY with work and I didn’t have a spare brain cell left. The kitchen tour is coming, I promise! Thank you to everyone who has reached out to me to ask for updates.

September started out with Micro💩 software issues that made me joke on Facebook that I picked the right day to dress like a poor man’s Linda Hamilton. I crack myself up sometimes. Also, I got a haircut the next day. It’s incredible to need to do that regularly now!

Of course with the new kitchen, I did a ton of cooking in September, including a “Chinese week” where I made a bunch recipes from Souped Up Recipes. So grateful to have our Asian Mart with most of the ingredients and brands that are recommended in the recipes!

While in the middle of cooking, my new neighbours, from Pakistan!, dropped off these delicious banana muffins.

Other than hamburger, the only way I really like beef is in these recipes. I would end up adding this beef and carrots to my regular rotation.

Cashew chicken also happens regularly . I love Asian five spice mix!

My Chinese-style chicken teriyaki wasn’t much to look at but was delicious.

Beef and broccoli is always delicious. Oyster sauce is magic.

Of course I made plenty of white rice to go with everything.

That leek was longer than my fridge is deep! LOL

On a whim one Saturday afternoon, I decided to run away to Progreso for dinner.

I found a restaurant that served me a delicious mezcalita.

And an even more delicious shrimp aguachile with mango and habanero.

That broth was divine and I did not leave a drop!

I really need to do this more often.

The final recipe I did was American sweet and sour pork, which featured more ketchup than I normally eat in a year. As I expected, the recipe was way too sweet for me and did not end up on the rotation, despite being delicious. I actually finished up with the last of the dumpling wrappers, making sweet and sour pork gyozas!

These vegetables were for a different dish featuring pork and celery, so I’d have something blander and saltier to offset the sweetness of the sweet and sour sauce.

Obligatory feline portraits. I love my girls so much.

These rocking chairs are much too low for me, but at only $1,000 for both, I had to snag them as I knew they’d look good against the pink.

I came into some duck eggs and was able to knock a few more things off my egg bucket list!

A jammy egg over noodles. Divine. Many months later, days before I actually wrote this post, a restaurant ignored my “no egg” request with my ramen and included a soy sauce marinated chicken egg like this that looked so good that I decided to take a bite, figuring that since I’d gotten over the “ick” factor of eggs, that maybe I could build up tolerance to chicken eggs. Nope. It tasted rotten! I finally had the proof I needed for myself that I really can’t eat chicken eggs. 🙁

And then a Japanese omelette, for which there are no words. They are made with mirin and sesame oil, making them a little nutty and sweet. This was the first egg dish that I truly went “OH, this is why people love eggs so much.” I made this one a few more times!

I made another upgrade to the kitchen. I gave up on having a fancy faucet with a spray hose because there just isn’t enough pressure. I’d tried installing a pressurizing pump, but it kept jamming up with sarro. After searching for a compromise, I found this inexpensive faucet on Amazon that was the answer I needed. I lost the spray feature, but I still have the flexibility of a hose.

Proud to say that I installed the new faucet myself!

September had a huge milestone. A lady posted to a Facebook group that she was looking for head scarves for a family member undergoing chemotherapy. Now that I have a mostly full head of hair for the first time in my life (THANK YOU MODERN MEDICINE), I don’t wear scarves anymore. I gifted her my entire scarf collection. That was quite an emotional day.

I ordered dinner late in the month and added a brownie for dinner. Was I surprised when it came with ice cream and toppings! I love it when restaurants go the extra mile like that. Yum!

That really was it for September. I’m looking back over my schedule and I was pretty much double booked at work.