Three Beautiful Things 03-21-2022: Auto Tires Switched, Morning Glory Muffins, Black Bean Stew and Family Dinner

1.  After I loaded up the Sube with both cars' spring/summer/fall tires, I drove the Sube down to Silver Valley Tires, walked home, drove the Camry down, walked home, and waited for a phone call. Silver Valley called, telling me the cars' tires were switched. I walked back down to the shop, picked up the Sube, put the eight snow tires in the garage, walked back to SVTires, and picked up the Camry. 

Getting stuff like this done makes very happy, happy beyond reason.

2. While I waited for the cars, I baked Morning Glory Muffins, featuring apples, carrots, a tiny bit of zucchini, roasted coconut flakes, roasted chopped walnuts, and raisins along with the usual flours, brown sugar, eggs, and baking powder and soda. I made big muffins, six of them, for family dinner and I was very happy with how they turned out.

3. I also took responsibility for tonight's family dinner cocktail and main dish.

I made us all a Sazerac, using cognac instead of bourbon or rye whiskey. For each drink, I poured absinthe in a chilled glass, added ice, swirled around the absinthe, and dumped out the ice and leftover liquid. I poured some simple syrup into the bottom of the glass, put cognac with ice in the cocktail shaker, got the cognac cold by shaking, poured it over the simple syrup, added a few dashes of Peychaud's bitters, and rimmed the glass with a lime peel and dropped the peel in the glass. 

This drink made everyone in the family happy.

Earlier, I had poured sherry and olive oil in the Dutch oven and added chopped onion, carrot, and celery. I cooked them until tender and added minced garlic and let that cook for a minute or so. Next I added a bunch of stuff to the pot: black beans, frozen corn kernels, vegetable broth, diced tomatoes, some tomato paste, honey, chili powder, oregano, and cumin. I squeezed the juice out of two oranges and added that. I brought the stew to a boil, covered the pot, let it simmer for about 45 minutes and then stirred in cilantro, and let it cook some more, at a very low heat, until we were ready to eat. 

I was really happy with this black bean stew.

We hadn't gathered for family dinner since February 28th.

It was fun to enjoy Murray's cheese and crackers with our Sazeracs, eat our stew and a muffin, drink Zag red wine or rose wine,  and snack on chocolate after dinner. 

We talked about a lot of different things having to do with friends, the school district, books, the Zags, and a variety of other things. 

We had a boisterous night!