I'm eating cooking videos for dinner

It's dinnertime on Sunday and I'm hungry.  But instead of procuring food, I'm blogging.  I started out reading cooking articles and videos online for some dinner inspiration, and somehow ended up just watching without cooking.  Eh.

Lately, I've been living off ready to eat meals and deli counter food, which is so unlike me.  But with everything in flux and how completely exhausting it is to be back in the office (how did I ever do this?), cooking has taken a backseat.  Even when I've had time and the groceries, I just haven't had the energy or desire.  After a month passed with no change in feelings, I started to wonder if I was ever going to want to cook again.  Was I turning a new page in my life...perhaps a kitchen-less one?

But today, I woke up feeling like my old self again and spent most of the day cooking and immersing myself in Mimi Thorisson's French Country Cooking (thanks Shawn and Kt!)  And I've gotta say, it was a pretty fantastic day.  Amongst other things, I made a crustless quiche to eat for lunch this week and a big ol' pot of homemade Arrabiata.

Photo from Mimi Thorisson's website

But dinner, not so much.  I tried to be adventurous, and combined my homemade Arrabiata with these tofu shirataki noodles that I picked up the other day. It wasn't good, not even a little (I blame the tofoodles).  It wasn't bad per se, but the texture just didn't do it for me.  The fact that the tofoodles kept perspiring probably didn't help either.  In the end, I ate about 5 bites before putting it down to look at yummier food on the internet instead.  It's probably going to be a while before I try that again, but I'm sure next time I'll do a little more research beforehand.

But while browsing yummier food online, I got stuck in a carb loop. And of course, I'm sharing:







And this scrumptious concoction is my favorite for the night.  It has so many ingredients I love - morels, asparagus, cheese, gnocchi, and butter!


Of course, I probably won't be making any of these dishes tonight.  Especially since I've now spent 90 minutes watching videos and blogging.  Hard boiled eggs for dinner?


Note: When I first started making Arrabiata, I followed this recipe.  Over time, my sauce has morphed into entirely my own thing, but this was where I started.  Now I use fresh tomatoes instead of canned, drastically reduced the onions because Steve isn't very fond of them, use only a little garlic because I want the tomatoes to be the star, fancy up the salt, and I prefer the flavor (i.e. swift kick in the gut) of fresh little Thai peppers over traditional red pepper flakes.