Monday Night

Late Monday afternoon may not be the traditional time to make an apple pie from scratch, but that’s what I did today. I had part of the day off, and my husband works late tonight, so I got it done. Double crust and all! (I’ll tell you about it even if it turns out to be terrible.) If that’s not news, then nothing is, so I figured I’d check in with a bit of a chat, even though it’s not Friday, or even Saturday night. Here’s what’s up:

The Day Job…

**Half dead. At the risk of offending the all dead, mostly dead, and undead, I have to state emphatically that The Day Job has left me half dead. Last week was a nightmare that included covering other persons’ shifts, covering open shifts (for which nobody was scheduled at all), and putting on a banquet dinner for about 225 people. The event was a great success, and so, so many people were involved in making it happen, but, dang! By Friday morning, I couldn’t feel my legs. (I got better.)

**More of the same. The next 20 days or so don’t look much better, but I really am learning to improve my time management at least a little bit. We’ll see how often I can cook or bake something new.

Links…

I sat down to write this and couldn’t think of anything I had cooked or read in, like, forever. I had to go to my Twitter page (@The_Messy_Apron) to remember what I’ve been up to, besides making a pizza or two and some egg sandwiches. Now that I’ve recovered a bit, I can see that some good stuff has been going on around here.

**Crying at Starbucks. While I don’t think I’ve ever actually done such a thing, I enjoyed this article, especially the discussion of “third place theory.”

**Dinner party strategy. I really liked this article. Realism!

**These tips to make you a better cook. I like #12, because it means I get to be nice to myself.

Recipes…

**PotstickerTortellini. Or something like it. I tried out the method of cooking tortellini much like potstickers outlined in this post at the blog Smitten Kitchen. I made mine with garlic, tomatoes and olives, rather than the peas and prosciutto in the original post. Fabulous!

**I need to make this butternut squash sandwich. The squash in my garden are ready to harvest!

**Tomatillo Chickpea Curry. Doesn’t that sound yummy. I’m hoping to try out a recipe this week. That is, if I don’t use the poblano chiles I bought for it to make Macaroni and Cheese with Roasted Poblanos and Smoked Paprika.

 

**Apple Cake. In addition to the apple pie that just came out of the oven, I’m hoping to try out a new apple cake recipe. (As if this one and this one aren’t enough.)

Sometimes I don’t know how I am going to continue living my life the way I do right now. My current Day Job may not be for me, but I really do know how necessary and meaningful the work that I do is. In tough times I’ll try to remember this quote to get me through.

“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say 'It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.' Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes." -Mr. Rogers

And then, there’s apple pie.