Yes, there is a hole in my kitchen ceiling this weekend. Hubby put it there. We needed to check the plumbing from our less-than-two-year-old new bathtub. About a month after it was installed water came leaking down through the ceiling. We had the contractor bring his plumber back out but nothing was wrong. The water leak never happened again until this past week. We sort of, maybe, figured out what could have happened so off we go to the local hardware store for a plumber’s wrench. Hubby tightens a connection and we are hoping for the best. We have not tested it yet. Perhaps we should put a hinge on this panel of ceiling for easy access should it happen again?

Meanwhile, what to cook? What to bake? I have not gotten around to anything citrus-y yet even while the grapefruits, oranges, and lemons linger in the bottom of the fridge. But there are two jars of cherries in the pantry. But first…

Friday evening and what to have for dinner? There is an “emergency pizza” in the freezer but that does not appeal. Fish filet from a frozen box and what to serve with? Rice pilaf comes to mind. I go back and forth in my thinking about whether it should be sweet or savory. I pull out a bunch of ingredients:

• nub of fresh ginger, peeled
• 1/2 green pepper, diced
• 1 smallish carrot, sliced
• tops of green onions, sliced
• one clementine
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup banana peppers
• 1/4 cup diced roasted red peppers, from a jar (not shown here!)
• coconut oil for sauteing
• soy sauce for seasoning
• garlic infused beef broth for seasoning as well
• brown rice, this is the kind that cooks in 10 minutes in boiling water

I basically just pulled out stuff I thought fit in a pilaf. I had mushrooms but they smelled funny so I did not use them. I must stop buying mushrooms unless I plan to use them right away. This was the second batch that smelled funny and had to be disposed of. Chop and mince and dice every thing to pilaf size. Saute everything while the rice is cooking. Add the raisins and clementine at the end. The amounts of the seasoning ingredients are up to you. The broth kind of brings it all together before adding the rice. It was very yummy!

And now for the weekend dessert. This is a cherry cobbler baked in a cast-iron skillet from America’s Test Kitchen. You can find the recipe here. I promise I followed the recipe exactly. Well except for using a 10 inch skillet instead of 12 inch, having only 5 cups of cherries instead of 6 cups, and not having turbinado sugar. Isn’t it pretty?

And tasty too! This was simple enough to make. One does cook the cherry juice into a syrup before adding the cherries and biscuit topping. I do not see how this would be any better in a larger skillet. Ten-inch is just the right size. The biscuits come together easily enough with buttermilk and melted butter. Sprinkling the sugar on top before baking gives a nice color and crunch. I used an organic fair-trade sugar from Aldi which has a slight caramel color. I will make this again even with fresh or other types of canned fruits. I may reduce the sugar a bit even though it was just 1/2 cup.The only real improvement needed was to have vanilla ice cream for serving.

Have a blessed week!