... and a little bit of that has been going on over the past week.
Lots of meetings. Meetings. Meetings. And, guess what, more meetings after that! September is the end of our fiscal year here, so not only are we trying to finish what's at the end of the year, but we are trying to plan for the year to come. Plus, I'm on the "board" for our little country group, so that means 4 days of meetings in September, as well. Not only that, but I'm the Secretary for that little "board", so my computer screen is projected on the wall the ENTIRE day. While other people are chatting on skype or checking their email, my screen is on the wall for the entire room to see. Which is probably a very good thing, because it forces me to engage and to be involved in what's going on!
Anyway, after a pretty full day of meeting, I decided (for some strange reason!) that I was going to attempt to make something completely new for supper tonight. Remind me not to do that again, would you? It turned out quite tasty, in the end, but took over 2 hours of solid "in the kitchen-ness"! But yum. I made pumpkin gnocci with tomato sauce, all from scratch. The gnocci was the bit that got a bit tedious, because I hadn't even started the pumpkin wrestling process at 5:30pm! So I did a little wrangling of the pumpkin with a very big knife on the kitchen floor (only way I can get enough leverage on the silly thing to get it open!), then proceeded to chop and boil so I could get some cooked pumpkin to put in the blender to puree. Once I had the pumpkin pureed, I started in on the flour and egg and spices to whip up a batch of gnocci. Considering I've never even made normal gnocci before, and now here I was trying to make a weird pumpkin gnocci recipe... well, I wasn't quite sure what I was getting myself into. Took a while longer than I thought. Recipe said, "20 minutes of prep, 10 minutes to cook". I guess they didn't factor in the fresh pumpkin to puree section!
While all that was going on, I was also chopping onions, green pepper, garlic, and tomotos to put in the tomato sauce. Had to leave the pumpkin on the stove while I went to harvest some basil from the garden, too.
In the end, we were eating around 7:30pm. I was missing a nice glass of red wine with the meal, but all in all, it was quite delicious. My gnocci certainly weren't that pretty, since I was getting rather impatient and hungry by the end of the process, but they weren't too bad for my first attempt, I think. Next time, I have a few ideas to improve them, though!
I think I've been enjoying cooking so much lately because I've been cooking things from the garden, which have been grown by my very own two hands (with a wee bit of help from God and his good sun and rain!). I also enjoy it because it's doing something other than sitting on my butt at the computer, and still feels like a very good use of my time. And of course, I then get to eat what I create, which is an even better benefit :)
Lots of meetings. Meetings. Meetings. And, guess what, more meetings after that! September is the end of our fiscal year here, so not only are we trying to finish what's at the end of the year, but we are trying to plan for the year to come. Plus, I'm on the "board" for our little country group, so that means 4 days of meetings in September, as well. Not only that, but I'm the Secretary for that little "board", so my computer screen is projected on the wall the ENTIRE day. While other people are chatting on skype or checking their email, my screen is on the wall for the entire room to see. Which is probably a very good thing, because it forces me to engage and to be involved in what's going on!
Anyway, after a pretty full day of meeting, I decided (for some strange reason!) that I was going to attempt to make something completely new for supper tonight. Remind me not to do that again, would you? It turned out quite tasty, in the end, but took over 2 hours of solid "in the kitchen-ness"! But yum. I made pumpkin gnocci with tomato sauce, all from scratch. The gnocci was the bit that got a bit tedious, because I hadn't even started the pumpkin wrestling process at 5:30pm! So I did a little wrangling of the pumpkin with a very big knife on the kitchen floor (only way I can get enough leverage on the silly thing to get it open!), then proceeded to chop and boil so I could get some cooked pumpkin to put in the blender to puree. Once I had the pumpkin pureed, I started in on the flour and egg and spices to whip up a batch of gnocci. Considering I've never even made normal gnocci before, and now here I was trying to make a weird pumpkin gnocci recipe... well, I wasn't quite sure what I was getting myself into. Took a while longer than I thought. Recipe said, "20 minutes of prep, 10 minutes to cook". I guess they didn't factor in the fresh pumpkin to puree section!
While all that was going on, I was also chopping onions, green pepper, garlic, and tomotos to put in the tomato sauce. Had to leave the pumpkin on the stove while I went to harvest some basil from the garden, too.
In the end, we were eating around 7:30pm. I was missing a nice glass of red wine with the meal, but all in all, it was quite delicious. My gnocci certainly weren't that pretty, since I was getting rather impatient and hungry by the end of the process, but they weren't too bad for my first attempt, I think. Next time, I have a few ideas to improve them, though!
I think I've been enjoying cooking so much lately because I've been cooking things from the garden, which have been grown by my very own two hands (with a wee bit of help from God and his good sun and rain!). I also enjoy it because it's doing something other than sitting on my butt at the computer, and still feels like a very good use of my time. And of course, I then get to eat what I create, which is an even better benefit :)
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