Leeks

I like leeks a lot. (Say that three times fast.)

I bought some leeks at central market for THIS recipe. I apparently forgot to buy parmesan cheese, pancetta, and bowtie pasta. And cream. Oops.

To be fair, I thought I had the other ingredients, and was going to substitute thinly sliced bacon for the pancetta.

Here are the enormous leeks.

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Are all leeks that big?

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(I have no idea what's up with the purple-ish hue to this photo.)
(Is "hue" the right description? Emily?)

When I bought them, they came in a package four stalks of leek. (Stalks?)

So I chopped them all up and froze the extra. That may or may not have been a good idea, but it works with onions (which I don't usually chop, because they make me cry), so why not give it a try? Not crying is good. I appreciate you, leeks, for not making me cry!

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Imagine my horror when I went to get the bacon out of the fridge and discovered an empty drawer. The subsequent shock occurred when instead of condensed (unsweetened) milk, which I always substitute for cream, stood a lonely can of evaporated nonfat milk. And then, when I discovered the lack of parmesan cheese (we didn't even have any of the sad little can of 'cheese dust' left), I wanted to cry. I sliced some chicken, browned the leeks in olive oil, added some salt 'n' pepa, and then some white wine. It smelled okay, so I continued, adding the evaporated milk and bracing myself for some sort of explosion. When nothing happened, I stirred in the slightly al dente penne pasta (our big pasta pot is still at a friend's house after a potluck 2 weeks ago, so I had to use a small saucepan) and sprinkled some slightly dried out preshredded mozzarella on top. The mozzarella is a story in itself, because it's the only thing left of a really horrid trip to Aldi in which every single item from a $92 trip turned out to be rottten, gross, spoiled, nasty, or just plain weird. But not that cheese. ???

Jason's reaction - I wish I had taken photos, but my sad little camera clearly has something wrong with it ....
The first bite: "Hmmm....."
Second bite: "No, wait, honey, it's not that bad..."
Third bite: "I think i could do this..."
Fourth bite: "No, honey, we really don't have to throw it away!"

Olivia's reaction - wrinkled up nose, look of disgust...

My reaction - "It's really ok if you just want to go to Country Burger... I'll eat this... tasteless is really ok with me!"

I think I'm gonna just stick to the staples: sloppy joes and mac 'n' cheese. Amen.

I hate cooking.

...I hate cooking, yes I do, I hate cooking, how 'bout you?...

I am coming to terms with my hatred of cooking. I get overly stressed about what to make for dinner. I've often said that if I could just pop a pill that would quell my appetite, provide the nutrition I need, and then I could just move on with my day, well, I'd be a happy camper. Alas, no such miracle exists.

So, in the spirit of spicing things up, I decided to make burritos for dinner. I was thinking about beef, tortillas, melted cheese.... mmmmmmmm......
And then my dear husband (JP) said: Hey! I bought taco shells. Why don't you make tacos? I thought that would be fine. No problem!

The taco shells are stale.

I like to eat stale cheetos.... but this was going nowhere fast.

We made our tacos, sprinkled grated colby jack on top (that's the only kind of cheese we eat 'round here) and took a bite. Well, tried to.
Yuck.

We had taco meat on a plate for dinner tonight.

So I made dessert. I was so excited thinking about how this dessert was going to make up for the stale taco shells (that were entirely not my fault, amazingly).

I made the cheesecake, with relatively no hiccups. There was the slight issue that I wasn't able to find Biscoff cookies (silly me, I went to Central Market, thinking these were hard to find!) and used Anna's Cookies (cappuccino flavored, of course) instead. This lead to an issue with not having enough crust. Fortunately, the crust can't be seen therefore no one will care!

The cheesecake came out of the oven looking divine. As it cooled, it developed a chasm. A rift. The grand canyon.

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That's ok. It will taste great!

This part scared the snot out of me. I was to heat heavy cream and butter until almost boiling. No, it was not the prospect of jiggly thighs (already got those), but it was the fact that I knew this would easily burn.

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Here's my chocolate chips, ready to be melted by said almost-boiling creamy stuff... Please excuse the chip on the bowl. The bowl still works.

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(By the way, I bought those at Central Market too, since I was there. They were in the bulk section. Did I tell you what JP said? NO? I told him they were "65% chocolate" since he seems to have this obsession with knowing what percentage cocoa is in them?? I guess? (I have no idea what I'm talking about.) He says, "What's the other 35%? Dung?" I just about lost it. Sorry for that.)

The resulting melted, stirred up stuff...

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And add in the powdered sugar... I mean, excuse me, confectioner's sugar...
"It's all spahkly!"

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Beautiful!
It occurred to me about halfway through pouring this Ganache on top, that we wouldn't get to eat this sinful dessert until tomorrow morning. Which is why I'm still awake. Amen.

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Please excuse the fact that I apparently can't pour anything without dripping it all over the stove and the floor. (That's why we have dogs.)