End of Vacation Blues

Well, I know I should be grateful for the fact that I had way more time off work for the holidays than most people.  And I am.  But also I am miserable tonight, because the extra time off makes it so much harder to go back tomorrow!  LikeI said yesterday, I know that this means way less cooking, so don't expect the daily updates! I'll go back to letting Kenzie take back her kitchen for a while!

Tonight I made dinner for Mark and Rachael.  Rach has been sick for a week and hasn't eaten basically anything that I've made, and Marky's acid reflux has been acting up, so there has been a lot of whining!  Mom and Kenzie went shopping so I told Mark and Rachael to decide what they wanted me to make for them.  They chose veggie stir fry.  I obviously immediately grabbed the computer to look up a good recipe, and quickly realized that I was on my own.  As a perfectionist when it comes to following directions, I simply cannot make a recipe that calls for broccoli when I don't have broccoli.  I know that normal cooks would just use whatever vegetables they have.  Well, I am no normal cook.  I am a beginner, and rather unconfident.  So: cue the panic.  Add the fact that Mark was laying on the couch moaning about hunger and burping, and you have the end result of me tossing the laptop aside (gently) and fending for myself in the kitchen.  Talk about scary.

So, to make a long story short, I made a vegetable stir fry with whatever we had in the fridge (red and yellow peppers, snow peas, carrots) and improvised a sauce from a few different recipes and based on what I had (which was soy sauce, ground ginger, water, garlic, and corn starch).  Rachael and Mark enjoyed it (no thanks to Mark, whose only job was to start the rice for me, and he used the wrong pan and forgot to turn on the stove... thanks honey!), but I will tell you someone who didn't: me.  It was so stressful to venture away from recipes that I did not enjoy cooking at all, and I got so stressed that I didn't even want to eat.  I even refused to take pictures of it. I am not yet ready to just "whip things up" in the kitchen.  Lesson learned today: stick to recipes!

In order to prove that I learned this, I stuck to a recipe.  I made baked oatmeal.  I figured it would be something healthy for the sickies, and pretty good for tomorrow morning when I am tired, depressed, and rushing off early to work (because obviously I have not touched my plan book since the last day of school).   It just came out of the oven and smells absolutely delicious.  I haven't tried it yet, but it was pretty wasy so I hope it's good.  It has a layer of bananas on the bottom, and blueberries and walnuts mixed in.  The sweetening is just maple syrup and cinnamon, so it won't be too sweet, which makes me think that my mom will really like it (we joke that she hates flavor). 

Well it's 9:00.... probably should get to bed... that alarm rings reeaaaaally early :(  At least I have baked oatmeal to look forward to.

Recipes:

Baked Oatmeal with Fruit