You say tomato.

Have I mentioned how much I love sandwiches? Luckily I think Brad likes them almost as much as me, and this is one of our favorites -- pesto and Gouda. We had these simple sandwiches in Aruba and fell in love. Now that tomatoes are in season and totally yummy, I add a few slices to mine (Brad still goes without). Sunday I picked up some Gouda and some sub rolls made in Clinton Township and have been eating these sandwiches on and off all week.

Just a minute or two under the low broiler.



Melty pesto-ey yum.

Speaking of tomatoes, this week I went over to Lisa Z's for our last (sniff) weekly (sniff sniff) Harry Potter party (sniff sniff sniff), and she showered me with tomatoes of all sizes from her garden.

What to do, what to do.... For lunch, I decided to bust out some veggie meatballs I picked up and make a big pot o' pasta. Rigatoni, to be exact.

Ballsy.

First up, a ball report. These are ok. They're not fooling any meat eaters, that's for sure. They basically taste just like the meat crumbles I often buy. The texture is right, though, so you get the basic idea. But they definitely need a good amount of sauce to really taste right.

Balls in the window.

I mixed the meatballs with the rigatoni and the tomatoes (which I dropped in the pasta for a little less than a minute) and a dash of olive oil and a dollop of pasta sauce and some fresh basil and pepper (not too much basil as my little plant looks very sad). There is nothing quite like the pop and squirt of a very lightly cooked cherry tomato... I'm SO glad I am a tomato convert (how did I live so many years tomato-less?). Anyway, everything mixed up well together and I had quite a nice little lunch. Lots of leftovers, too.

On the house front, we had our inspection today. I was here, so I missed it, but it went pretty well. Lots of weird little things that the owners had to know about and should have fixed before putting the house on the market. But whatcha gonnna do, right? Our close date also got pushed up, so now we close on August 31! That's so soon! The reality of it all comes in short bursts but I immediately push it away. I'm doing a pretty good job of convincing my brain that I'm excited to leave Ann Arbor. But... You know. Who would be excited to leave Ann Arbor? Who am I trying to kid? Instead, I focus on new house stuff. I like new stuff. And new places. So I will think about paint.

Looks like I'll get my yellow kitchen after all! Woo! Thinking maybe an orange spare bedroom... probably another in brown. Picking up gray and blue is totally out of character for me, but something about these few shades... We shall see. I'm so overwhelmed by everything... But it'll be good. And fun. And I mostly can't wait!

PS. Meet the newest member of the family! My mom's new pooch, Zoey.

George and Heidi's lovechild?