Cooking to Assuage

It's a Tuesday night, and I'm sitting at home, y'all. Normally, I'd be out at Barley's for pint night with the boys spending two dollars after two dollars on Sweetwater 420. But the boys, at least two of them, are packing up tonight for big moves on Wednesday and Thursday. Being the ESFJ I am, I've volunteered to wield boxes and furniture in exchange for very little, probably a few beers, on both days. But really that's fine with me. I'm a natural born helper. I get my kicks from feeling like I've done something useful and nice for another. If you don't believe me, check out my personality type.

Anyway, with all this free time I've been cooking up a storm. See, I cook to assuage. I cook when I'm bored or when I've got the blues, and particularly when I feel homesick or lovestruck. I cook as a means of replacing an overwhelming emotion with something productive, creative, and time consuming. I guess I should be writing poems, and I do that too, but cooking has more tangible results. The proof is in the pudding, and there isn't so much delayed gratification. I need commendation now, thank you.

Earlier today I made some veggie quesadillas with things I had on hand: flour tortillas, yellow squash, eggplant, portabellas, cilantro, and cheddar cheese. I wouldn't know how to begin to recount the recipe since I just chopped and sliced and grated and satueed and toasted until I had something that tasted good. But here's about what I used:

• 1 yellow squash
• 1 baby eggplant (both local!)
• 1 portabella cap
• 1/4 white onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• about 1/4 cup fresh cilantro
• a couple pats of local unsalted butter
• salt, pepper, crushed red pepper to taste
• a squeeze of fresh lemon juice around the pan

Man, did it smell good as it sauteed. Looked pretty too. I piled the filling in between two tortillas and topped with grated cheddar, then toasted the whole thing in the toaster oven, sliced with a pizza cutter, and topped with my delicious homemade salsa.


It was quite yummy, and I think the filling would also be good over pasta or maybe in lasagna.

Ashley came over tonight right in the middle of Jeopardy! because I had a bunch of boxes for him. A pack rat from way back, I kept all the boxes I moved to Knoxville with in a storage room adjacent to my apartment. It was a stroll down memory lane to see all my TCBY and Subway product boxes go away in his Camry, like a piece of my past life as a fast food employee to be forever lost in some storage shed in McMinnville, TN. Oh well, they're just boxes. Plus, in return Ashley gave me all his baking stuff: mixes, sugars, bottles of vanilla extract, more cocoa than I'll ever use, rolled oats, chocolate. I used my bounty to make some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that I plan on bringing to the Great Moving Event tomorrow. A true Southerner never shows up at an event with out a dish, and I'm hell with the cookies. Once I was unable to successfully complete a batch without burning the bottoms, but I'm learning, y'all. Mr. Sisk has a mean oven eye now.

My cookies turned out just scrumptious, though if I had them to make again, I'd have cut back on the sugars. They are a bit sweet, and that's saying something, because I've got a killer sweet tooth.


I plan to bust them out when we need an energy boost tomorrow. Hope Ben and Ashley like them.

Welp, that's what I've done with my Tuesday. Now I'm going to run and catch Law and Order: SVU. Elliot Stabler is a dream.

P.S.-- I had picture of my food, and I tried 4 times to resize and post them, but the skill escapes me. I'll work on it later, but now SVU!