The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness

First, just an update on the meal planning adventure (because we call everything tedious an “Adventure!” around here):

This site has been really handy.The frustrating thing about cooking is that I can’t look at a stack of ingredients and intuitively know how to put them together to make something delicious. If a dish has more than 5 ingredients, I need detailed instructions, and then when I do break out the cook books, I get 3 ingredients down the list before I run into something I do not have and have no idea how to replace. Enter this site, where I can list what I do have, and it spits out recipes that I can make right away. I also really like the feature where you can highlight items that you need to use right away (produce that is getting mushy, meat you forgot you took down from the freezer yesterday, etc) and it will narrow the recipes to only those that have that item. There are some quirks - I wish all the “Entrees” were not meat based, and that they had more categories (Soups, sides, breads, etc) - but over all I am impressed. Now, if this application could be plugged into a weekly meal planning site, I would be ecstatic - does that exist somewhere and I am just missing it?

Oh, and I made bread:

With yeast even ya’ll! Without a bread maker! I made three loaves and they were gone in two days, so I would say it was a successful first attempt. Next up: Asiago cheese dinner rolls.

I opened this window to write a response to FireMom’s entry over here, but then I realized it is 10am and both girls are napping. This could be the first sign of a lurking Sick, so I better ready the battle stations. Is it depressing to anyone else that when my kids actually sleep well, I assume they are ill?

(Ella begged for a bed on the deck, so I indulged her, thinking it would be for her bear. My computer is right next to the window, and I watched her climb in, lay her head down, and pass out. I wonder if i can manage to put sunblock on her while she is sleeping?)