My midnight...

My "midnight" of late has been around 6:00 PM.  SIGH.  It is just plain ... odd ... to be climbing into bed then, so exhausted that remaining awake is simply not an option.

Now, I'm a girl who reads before she goes to sleep.  I'm a reader.  I've been a reader my entire life.  I was the kid who read in the tub, on the toilet, at the table, on the bus, in the car, behind my textbooks, on the playground, on the subway, at the symphony, in waiting rooms, whilst driving on long trips (we won't discuss that), and in bed before I go to sleep.  I read.  I'm a reader.  But, right now, I've been too exhausted to even open a book.  I climb into bed, turn off the light, and fall asleep.

Who am I?

Two days ago, I went to fill up the basement freezer some more meals, using the ingredients on hand.  I was certain that on my last freezer contents assessment, I was short of black eyed peas.  I mean, I know that I am on my last serving of stew, but I thought that what I could make was a batch of my Myrtle's Medley Black Eyed Peas.  So,  I did.

Seriously, have you see a more mouthwatering sight??

You know, as a first step of a recipe, this is it a gargantuan temptation to not actually finish the recipe.  Will power.  Much, much, much will power is needed to continue.

I remain proud of this very tasty recipe that I cobbled together, but I did make some changes to it and updated my recipe rememberer blog.  Primarily, I used real onion and garlic instead of the onion powder and the Gourmet Gardens minced garlic.  The latter is because I have become the best garlic mincer in America, if not the planet.  Not only can I serve you up a ginormous pile of finely minced fresh garlic in mere moments, I have now mastered the trick of just how much pressure to use to smash the garlic clove with the side of your knife so that it will slide out of all the skin/covering/paper stuff.  I rock at mincing garlic.

Since I was using the fresh ingredients, I actually had this very savory goop in the pan when I was finished with that section of the recipe.  Extra savory, really, since I used the thyme from my own raised bed.

The recipe I made uses water.  I did have thoughts ... second-guessing thoughts ... about whether I should use stock instead.  But just look at that "water"!!  Mmmm........

When I was putting away my black eyed pea stash in the basement freezer, I found four servings still in there.  It was then I realized I remembered wrong.  What I am out of is the Black Bean Soup with Roasted Bell Peppers.

I am out of dry black beans. I am, in fact, out of all dried beans and lentils and such.  I am actually out of garlic, too.  I have but one onion.  And I need a whole host of other staples.  That's what happens when you spend just over $50 on groceries for a month.  Tomorrow, I have prescriptions to fetch and hope to get groceries, too.

My friend Mary gently asked if I was forgetting some of the tasty things I like to make, such as Alfredo sauces or the chicken enchiladas.  I have and have not.  Those two are items that I wouldn't freeze.  So, the energy of making a meal is just for one meal.  In the two "meals" that I made this week, I ended up with 18 servings, 18 meals.  I do want to expand out of my tasty culinary rut, but I need to find things that freeze well.

Plus, I do cook small things for myself to supplement the one freezer meal I have each day.  Although, I admit that, of late, being so exhausted, that cooking often amounts to a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.

I did find a box of Cherry cake mix in my cupboard that I had forgotten that I had bought to make cookies.  So, I did.  It was weird, though.  I mean, I used the same recipe as the Strawberry Cake Mix cookies and ended up with batter, not dough.  So, I dropped the batter into a custard bowl of powered sugar to contain the form of a cookie on the pan and baked them.  The overly large cookies took 18 minutes to cook.  But they turned out tasty.  Too tasty.  I had to put them in the back of the freezer just to stop eating them.  With just 15 large cookies, I am not really interested in sharing.

The other day I did have a bright spot.  I realized that my hair was finally long enough for my Heidi braids.  It's been years since I wore them.

It's hard not to feel special and powerful when you have a crown of braids circling your head.  And, as you can see, taking a photo of the back of your own head is not easy.

This has been my main view this week.  That lump in the middle is Amos.  He has very firm opinions now about being both in my lap and beneath the blankets.  It's a tricky operation to accomplish both when I am sitting on the couch.  When I am on the couch, Amos will whimper and whine and paw at me until my now very dense brain figures out he wants to be in my lap and beneath the blankets.  He still sits on the back of the couch guarding the house, leaning his body against my head.  But when he's ready for a nap, if I won't go over to the GREEN chair, Amos does not care to be on either side of me.  Curled up in a ball in my lap is his pleasure.

My Amazon Subscribe and Save order came a few minutes ago.  The wheat germ makes me want to try out some granola thoughts, but I am too tired. It is, after all, coming up on midnight for me.  I did make some gorp, though.

Gorp.  That shows my age.  Nowadays, folk just eat trail mix.  In fact, there's a whole industry of competing trail mix companies out there.  But, back in the dark ages, when my mother and step-father were in Sierra Club and went on back-packing, hiking, and canoeing trips, they make their own gorp.  And it was gorp.  None of this trail mix stuff.  Folk traded gorp samples and recipes and all was good.  Anyway, I made some gorp because one of the ingredients was also in my Subscribe and Save order.

Now, the gorp, I'll share.  The Maple Chili Roasted Pumpkin Seeds?  Not a chance!  Pumpkin seeds may not be economical, but they are one of my choices for food, now that I know that I can make the best pumpkin seeds on the planet.  I did find how to get four packages for the cost of just less than three on Subscribe and Save, so I added that to next month's order.  The cool thing is that the wild sale of the granola bars I have for breakfast I pounced on last time I fetched a prescription significantly offsets my pumpkin seed purchase.

I like sales.
I like pumpkin seeds.
I like figuring out tastiness on such a tight budget.

My reminder for today's NASCAR race has been popping up on my computer.  It will run past my midnight, so I don't know if I'll be able to remain awake long enough to see the winner.  Have I mentioned how bloody exhausted I am?  SIGH.

Hey, if my midnight is just a few hours away ... shouldn't it be getting dark?