Cluck, Cluck, Cluck

28 July 2008

Inspirational Payoff

So, last night I made dinner.

This in and of itself is not even remotely out of the ordinary. I make the dinner. I love to cook. Its my fun thing. My creative thing.

Its just that lately, dinner has been pretty uninspired. I'm cooking and cleaning keeping the clutter at bay all day, everyday. By the time dinner gets around it feels like another round on the same old cycle after a day of swimming and block playing and stories and turning off the lights and vacuuming the dirt that spilled out of the ficus plant...again.

Daughter is getting hungry and tired. Boyfriend is home from work and hungry and ready to chill out for a bit. Cooking a big, elaborate meal (or even a non-elaborate, but slightly out of the box creation) is just too much effort.

Dinner has become the chore in between all the daytime activities and the nighttime bath, books, bed routine.

We eat healthy, hearty (gluten-free) food. We eat a lot of vegetables and organic food. The weather has not been terribly conducive to summer cooking, so even the barbecuing has been cut down to a minimum. Of course, we are also eating with a two year old, a two year old who eats just about ANYTHING you put in front of her, but will eat more if you cater to her tastes.

We have eaten out about three times in the past two months and always when we have guests in town. Hell, we've had SUSHI twice in the past two months! Sushi is a staple of our busy lives diet when Daughter is with her dad.

We are just eating a lot of the same. A lot of roast or grilled chicken. A lot of pasta. A lot of potatoes. Honestly, a fair amount of my grandmother's macaroni and cheese because we all love it and the weather has been so awful and perpetually calling for comfort food.

Neither Daughter nor Boyfriend are very good at having opinions about what they would like for dinner. Questions about preferences are generally met with either complete disregard/requests that are never going to be granted...."BROWNIES! ICE CREAM! " (Daughter) or "Whatever would be great" (Boyfriend). Haha! Tacos it is!

I'm just in a rut.

So yesterday, after some cleaning and sorting through of the overflowing magazine basket, the unearthing of the Food & Wine Magazines that I have been saving for months paid off in the first original culinary thought that I have had in months:




Thai Seafood and Noodle Salad!

We even made a late afternoon run to Fred Meyer's to pick up supplies.

Daughter had a grilled cheese before Boyfriend and I sat down to eat.

I altered the recipe only a bit and served it warm. We paired it with Barefoot Pinot Grigio because that be what we had in the fridge. Also, I forgot the peanuts which will definitely be making an appearance on the leftovers.

It was delicious. I had forgotten how much I like Thai food. I had forgotten how much fun it was to have something totally new.

Yum.....

It was so much fun that I let Daughter skip her nighttime bath and finish the video she was watching.

Then this morning they turned off the water to our building again. Sigh.

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