Simple Pleasures.......

........This one will probably be short and sweet.  Well, at least short.  And, at the end you may be  asking why????  But, I have a feeling some of you will know.......

 

Have you tried these yet?  I stumbled upon them and thought they might be something good to try.  They are kinda like pop-tarts but these are softer.

 

You can eat them right out of the package but, with each one I put them in the toaster for a short time.  The first one I ate plain and they are fairly tasty but the next time I put butter and jelly with them and liked them even better.  This was too much of both and I ended up not eating all the butter and jelly.

 

 

The next time I had one I decided this Classic Caramel Sundae Syrup might taste good and I was right - it tasted very good!  But, with this much, all I tasted was the caramel syrup and it was a bit too much.

 

 

So, the next time I put the same thing but less of it and I liked it better. These were all eaten for breakfast, by the way, but are good enough for a quick simple dessert.

 

 

 

This was today's breakfast.  I decided to cook some oatmeal and looked in the refrigerator for the dried cranberries I sometimes use. Well, I had put the pack in the refrigerator last time with about enough pieces in it to make up two cranberries!!!  That led me to wonder what else might taste good in oatmeal. 

 

 

 

Sometimes I add some natural sugar.  Not 1/3 cup, of course, for my one serving.  Oatmeal is something that I do not enjoy unless I add something sweet.

 

 

For the first time I tried coconut.  I sprinkled in a hearty helping while the oatmeal was cooking and just a little more on top of the serving.  I liked it!  Now, I'm thinking coconut milk might be a good thing to cook with it.

 

But, I am finally getting to the point of the post.  Simple Pleasures.  There is nothing extremely note worthy or unusually pleasurable about eating what I've shown, but the WAY I served it is. It might not work for everyone but for people like me who are about visuals as much as anything, you understand.  I mostly cook for one, only me, but you can just as easily and almost as quickly, make the presentation good looking and a simple pleasure for a family. It takes something sort of mundane to pleasurable if you just choose something you like to serve it on/with!

 

 

Talk about mundane!  A big baked potato!  But, boy was it good!  And, the pleasure partly came from using this oblong shallow dish it is in. And, I am almost sure, the fresh tomatoes with a sprinkling of Italian dressing and some blue cheese crumbles, tasted even better in the little single serving pie baker! By the way, this wasn't breakfast, but now that I think of it, it might be good for breakfast! Especially since I don't like to eat breakfast until about mid-morning.

 

While I ate the potato, I thought of where I bought this dish (York, Pa. at the Pfaltzgraff outlet) and the family members I was with.  And, I thought of why - I bought nine of these to bring home for my Christmas brunch containers, that year. I also thought of my sweet friend, Lynda  who used her dish like this one to serve the big yummy potato she brought to me one day when I wasn't feeling my best.  Now, I'm thinking how close it is getting to "Christmas brunch time" (Dec. 8th) with the special ladies and I haven't found my containers yet!

 

I love the bottom as much as the topside.  And, I almost always turn it over and see the bottom before I use it - simple pleasures. This kind of stuff might not thrill you a bit but there must be ways every day that you can treat yourself in a intentional way.  It really doesn't take much.

~~~~~

I guess this turned out not so short after all. And, I'm not even sure about the sweet!  Tell me what you do that is a special little pleasure you give yourself.