Good to Remember

MamaSays, thank you for letting me know that MovieMom is now on belief.net. I have added her to my Bloglines. This was waiting for me when I came home from church. How thankful I am that I am never entirely alone, that I have wonderful friends at work and at church, and that I have an eternal Friend who marked the path for me.

I came home and cooked. Macaroni and cheese and cauliflower, based on the recipe in the February issue of Real Simple. I added a box of frozen peas and used half of the smallest head of cauliflower I could find. I loathe cauliflower, and I know it’s good for me. Considering how much cheese and other good stuff I threw in, I figured I could sneak it past my tastebuds before they knew what had happened.

It calls for a cup and a half of grated extra-sharp cheese. I grated 8 oz of sharp and was thinking about grating in some Asiago, but I put in a cup of sour cream and another cup of crème fraîche, instead of the cup and a half of light sour cream specified. I left out the low-fat milk because it was creamy enough. And I tried a new variety of sweet white onion that didn’t stink up my kitchen and added much to the mix. I’ve never much cared for onions, but now my body seems to tolerate them better.

I omitted the breading on top. Not a big fan of parsley, flat-leaf or otherwise, and that was a major part of the breading. Even less of a fan of broiling stuff, even though it makes a prettier presentation. It used to drive me nuts when I was a kid. Mom made white sauce from scratch, melted Velveeta into it [because that’s what I would eat], stirred it all together, and baked the casserole in the oven for an additional half hour. She would top it with the last crumbs of the potato chips we had with the hamburgers she made every Saturday night. And I would be a whiny, ungrateful, starving mess when she finally took the casserole out of the oven and served it to us.

It’s one thing to graciously enjoy/endure delayed gratification in terms of romance. But I’m willing to forego at least some garnishes in order to legitimately satisfy one of my appetites!

I had a serving of the mac and cheese when it came out of the oven yesterday. No, I didn’t fool my tastebuds; they knew there was something suspiciously cruciferous every few bites. But I mostly enjoyed it, and I think I could get used to it. I have the batch divvied up in one-serving and two-serving portions and will take some to work today. And a deviled egg sandwich to eat on the drive home.

Since it’s a holiday, fewer trains will be running, and I will be driving in. And since Middlest has to work tomorrow night, she asked me to come over tonight so we can get our weekly knitting in. I will hit Knit Night tomorrow night as well. [Welcome to the all-knitting, all-the-time channel!]

I thought I would be going to Secondborn’s last night to have pancakes and bend the Sabbath by using her washer and dryer. We all ended up going to Firstborn’s, where the washer is so huge that I got it all done in one load of wash and two loads of drying [and that, only because I washed a couple of towels in with my dark T-shirts and slacks]. We had chili and cornbread, and we played Guitar Hero for dessert. They even got me on the mic for Fleetwood Mac’s “You Can Go Your Own Way”. I was on the money for the choruses and struggled mightily on the verses; I can’t sing deeply like Firstborn, who can cover just about anything from first-and-a-half soprano to tenor.

I know; if we didn’t love her, we’d beat her about the head and shoulders with a conductor’s baton.

BittyBubba, of course, was fascinated by all the electronics, cords, etc. Uncle 1BDH spent much of his time wrestling and distracting him so he wouldn’t try to play jump rope with the mic cord. But you ought to see that little boy boogie! He will be the darling of the youth dances at church in a few more years. BittyBit had a blast playing drums; they quietly turned off that part so she wouldn’t get them booed off the stage, and I suspect that in a few years she will be able to hold her own on drums, guitars, and vocals.

And now if you will all excuse me, I think the chocolate is melted for the triple chocolate muffins from my Williams-Sonoma muffin/quickbread cookbook. I haven’t made these for about four years; we are talking seriously geriatric baking chocolate here, but it smells just fine from where I sit. Two of these should just about equal the large double-chocolate muffins I get from the deli at work, both in terms of volume and caloric density. Not to mention that I had everything I needed in my pantry, so I will save between $5 and $10 over the next two weeks without feeling deprived.

I think that next payday I want to go to Costco with one of the girls and pick up a case or two of individually-portioned fruit juices. They could go into my pantry and year’s supply and would save me another $7.50 a week at the deli. Typically I bring the bottles home, rinse them out thoroughly, and take them back filled with fruit juice from home, and once again with 1%, at which point I pitch them. [I really should bring them home and recycle them. Baby steps.]

The smell of chocolate is about to overwhelm me, so I’d better get out to the kitchen and finish making those muffins. I’m also incorporating all the crumbs and broken bits of pecan from the bag of pecans that my home teacher gave me for Christmas, year before last. I have about a pie’s worth of unbroken halves still in the freezer from that batch, and an untouched bag from when they came to dinner last fall. There is also a recipe for ginger-pear muffins in the same cookbook, and I think it calls for pecans as well.

Nobody’s starving chez Ravelled.