Fourth of July

We had an awesome July 4th. Bats spent most of the day making pasta sauce from scratch. Our house smelled so delicious. I helped make vegan baked ziti. Bats found a recipe for a vegan ricotta cheese substitute that uses macadamia nuts. (I'm going to use some of the leftover miso paste to make tofu miso soup next week, hooray!) It turned out really yummy, although there was some grittiness that probably would have been better if we had an actual food processor and not a $15 blender. It was still freaking delicious though. We also made garlic knots with premade pizza dough from Trader Joe's. Just make fat little dough ropes and bake. Then they get rolled in a mixture of olive oil, minced garlic, and herbs and finished with a big glob of garlic. I almost died they were so yummy.

Once we were sufficiently stuffed with food, we scooted off to the Mecklenberg County Courthouse parking garage to watch the fireworks.



One of the people in jail was waving out the window, so I was waving back. At least they had a good view of the fireworks.

Here's the view down from where we were standing at the top of the parking garage. There aren't any in this photo, but people were pulling over beside the on ramp to watch fireworks! Bats and I were totally amazed that people would be so careless with their own safety and that of people driving, especially since there were 4 or 5 parking decks they could have gone to. It's incredible there wasn't an accident, especially since someone stopped and BACKED UP to get in front of the other cars so they could see through the trees.

But now for the good part. I got some really great pictures of the fireworks! There are more on my Flickr photstream.