Cooking as stress relief

The last week has been really stressful for me. My latest book, Unacceptable, that I absolutely love, goes live tomorrow and there's all kinds of little annoying things that you have to do when you have a book coming out. One of the ways I deal with stress is to cook. It relaxes my body and lets me think as I move around the kitchen. With all the things I got out of the garden already this has worked out well for me.

I made pickles. Yes I canned them in an old Vlassic pickle jar, don't laugh. And the brine isn't cloudy, the glass is cold because I just pulled it out of the fridge so it's foggy.

And I tried my hand at making cheese. It turned out very well and is a soft, because it's less than 24 hours old, cheddar cheese.

And for dinner tonight I decided to make a honey mustard glazed country ham. The sweet salty combo worked out perfectly.

And my usual big fat loaves of bread. This time it's french bread so the outside is a bit chewy.


I had the skin from the ham left over, yes it's skin, so I soaked that in the leftover sauce and toasted it to make chicharonnes.

And this is what we had for dinner tonight. Everything homemade. While another batch of cheese is draining on the counter and another 4 pounds of cucumbers are pickling. This is what country living is about.

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