…but methinks that if this forecast comes true, it must break a record or two!

My benchmark for "nice" April weather in Wisconsin has always been 1987, the year that Ali was born. We'd had a very mild winter and then, suddenly, it was spring — 70F when I went to the hospital, pretty much remaining there during my stay. I watched the leaves pop out while I was in the hospital! On my release, which was Easter Sunday that year, we had Easter dinner at my mom's… outside!

Obviously, we had Easter dinner outside (more or less) again this year, but WOW, would you look at those temperatures? A full week earlier and 6-11 degrees warmer than my benchmark of 1987.

As I recall, it continued mild in '87 right up until Memorial Day Weekend when it suddenly got HOTTER THAN HELL! And it stayed HOT all summer long. 2yo Katie's hair was so curly that summer, and Ali & I just sat in front of whatever air conditioner or fan we could find so we wouldn't melt into a puddle.

ANYWAY, enough again about the weather!

I found the curried shrimp recipe that I mentioned the other day and remembered why I really wanted to share it — it wasn't just rice, it was cauliflower fried rice. It was so good! The recipe is called Cauliflower Fried Rice with Curried Shrimp, it's from Food Network. I cut it in half when I made it because I had a half-pound of shrimp in the freezer. As mentioned earlier, I had WAY too much rice. Part of that was by design — I didn't want to have any leftover riced cauliflower, so I upped the proportion of rice to match — but my BIGGEST mistake was MAKING that much rice instead of USING that much rice. I put 2 cups of dry rice in my Instant Pot (my favorite way to cook rice these days), which of course yielded A LOT! I just wasn't thinking, and USED IT ALL. Rusty quizzed me a couple of times about the quantity of rice & how it was listed in the recipe, and my blunder still didn't register… for quite a while.

We'll be winging our way back to Mexico two weeks from today! It's going to feel a bit like Mexico here next week, with sunshine & a high of 77F on Wednesday — but not before we get to see more snow! An inch predicted overnight tonight. I feel like I'm talking about the weather a lot, but I know I'm not the only one. heh.

I was chatting with Kate a couple of days ago and Rusty leaned in/over my amaryllis to say HI… Kate said, "WATCH OUT FOR THE AMARYLLIS!" but it was too late, the stem was bent. Rusty leapt into action and we splinted it — luckily the major damage was only on one side, and it seems to have responded well. You can barely make it out in the blurry background, but there's another pot with a flower bud poking up — and there are actually two buds from that bulb, plus another that you can't see. I can't wait for flowers!

I've been cooking a lot this week, for some reason…

• Leek Quiche — I used an NYTimes Cooking recipe as my base, but did my own thing… I used a frozen deep-dish pie crust from the store, threw in some asparagus with the leeks (and will add more next time!), and used 4 whole eggs (instead of 2 egg yolks + 1 whole egg… can that even be called a quiche???) — four is my minimum number of eggs for a quiche!
• My favorite meatloaf recipe — Yes, Virginia, There is a Great Meatloaf, with mashed baby reds & I don't remember what vegetable. My only mods are to use 1/4 cup of Panko bread crumbs instead of bread and to cut back the brown sugar in the sauce. It's a favorite.
• Curried Shrimp & Rice that was unusual for us but really good, except I misread and made probably twice as much rice as needed. I don't remember where I found the recipe…
• Last night, I made Sheet-Pan Gnocchi With Asparagus, Leeks and Peas, another NYT Cooking recipe, and oh my gosh, was that ever good! So good that I'm giving you all the recipe, just click on the link and you should have access (the link is only good for two weeks). Anyway, the only thing I did differently was to cut the recipe in half, mainly because I didn't read correctly and only picked up one package of gnocchi the other day. I don't think it would be as good warmed up (that crisp gnocchi would get pretty soggy), so I'm glad it worked out that way. The recipe says Time: 30 minutes, but that is actual cooking time… add another 30 minutes to prep! Also, the oven time is a little confusing and I'll just say that the veggies took as long in the oven as the gnocchi to look the way I wanted them to. I set the timer and stirred the veg every 5 minutes.

Ali & fam will be coming over for Easter brunch on Sunday — I think I'm going to make that quiche again, along with waffles, some fruit, maybe some sausage. I'm still formulating.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!