Hermit

Did anyone see 30 Rock tonight?? The new cast member? JACK BAKER. It’s a sign, folks… okay, maybe not. But still cool.

Is it sad that the only time I left the house today was to hit up Sonic’s happy hour? Don’t answer that. This morning I decided to tempt the heartburn gods and have a big bowl of yogurt for breakfast:

Plain yogurt with a really juicy pear, cereal, walnuts and honey. And no heartburn!!

Brian calls our garage fridge “The Place Where Leftovers Go To Die.” There are always like 10 takeout boxes shoved in there, and we never end up eating any of it. Well today I remembered that we had part of a roasted chicken hiding in there, so I chopped that up and had it on an Ezekiel bun spread with this awesome cranberry-cinnamon goat cheese from Costco… and pickles on the side.

I should remember leftovers more often.

The November issue of Bon Appetit featured a Molly Wizenberg article about vegetarian Thanksgiving meals. She was complaining about the lack of a “central” dish in most meatless holiday dinners (rather than a bunch of random sides) and gave a recipe for Butternut Squash and Cheddar Bread Pudding. As soon as I read the ingredients- butternut squash, kale, wine, sharp cheddar- I knew that I had to try it ASAP.

It’s not exactly a difficult recipe skillwise, but it is pretty labor intensive. And the sink was FULL of dishes afterwards. You have to peel, dice and roast the squash (my least favorite cooking task ever), chop and saute the kale, marinate the bread for a while in an egg mixture, then assemble and bake for the better part of an hour. The result?

Pretty good. Not my favorite dish ever (especially given the time involved), but it did have a nice flavor and I loved that it included some of my favorite fall veggies. Next time I would use more cheese and maybe spice up the egg mixture a bit more. A whole grain baguette would have been a good alternative, too. We had it with the leftover tournedos from dinner last weekend, and Brian put together a quick mozzarella & tomato stack. The boy loves fresh mozzarella:

Oh, and fair warning: The recipe makes a TON. I think it serves 6-8.

Hey, guess what? Tomorrow’s FRIDAY!!! Woohoo! I’ve already started compiling our to-do list for the weekend. Mwahahaha.

-SURVEY-

Weekend plans?

Um, not spending money? That’s the goal, at least. We need to get a bunch of random stuff done around the house: raking the 5 billion leaves currently covering our yard, installing the carseat, some thank you note writing… thrilling, I know. Don’t be jealous.