A post in which there is lots to do*

I woke up early, but was able to go back to sleep thank goodness.  I woke up feeling GREAT.   And hungry.  There were a lot of errands to run today, and a lot of cooking that needed to be done.  So I started off with breakfast.  I made a delicious hash with leftover potatoes, mushrooms from my basket, and some cheese curds Rhonda had given me, which I topped of with over-easy eggs.  Telish!  With that I had toast and the last of some baked apples I had in the fridge, with iced coffee to drink.

I loaded up the car and headed out:
I dropped off the recycling
I went by the library and dropped off a book on DVD I had finished
I dropped my coupons for Swheat Scoop in the mail (the promotion ends this month)
I went by Swamp Rabbit for eggs (they do have pretty reasonable prices on locally sourced eggs).  While I was there I picked up some Happy Cow cheese.

It was a gorgeous day, and I was at the Rabbit before they even opened.  But there were serveral others waiting, so they went ahead and opened the doors. 

When I got home, I opened all the windows (the weather was beautiful), cleaned up the kitchen, and started cooking.  There was a head of cauliflower in my basket, and I had decided to make a curried cauliflower souffle.  That is one of my favorite recipes and I hadn't made it in a long time.  There were also two big (and not so pretty) yellow squash.  I had decided to make a Barclay Cafeteria squash casserole.  I found the recipe last year and fell in love with it.  After reading both recipes though, I realized that they were pretty similar - the main difference was the way they went together.  I have a large casserole dish, so decided just to throw it all together in the manner of a souffle and see how it came out.

The first challenge was the squash. They were HUGE - to the point that they had started to go to seed.  I would never buy squash like that, but after thinking about it, I just peeled them (the skins had gone thick and hard) and seeded them, then decided to slow cook them to be sure they were tender.  I had to add some water to them because they had started to dry out.  I cooked them with caramelized onion (of course) some salt and pepper, butter, and a little curry powder to put some curry flavor in the base.  I also added some carrot since I had all those big carrots in the house.

Then I cooked the cauliflower head (whole, as I usually do, over medium heat with a couple of bay leaves).  When it was done, I mashed it and added it to the squash and mashed it all together with a potato masher.  I made the cream sauce for the souffle, using the extra milk, flour, and butter called for in the squash casserole; and then separated the eggs called for in both recipes.  I tempered the yolks, mixed them into the  cream sauce, and added that to the squash mixture.  Then beat the egg whites into stiff peaks.  I folded them into the vegetable mixture, poured the lot into a large buttered casserole dish, and hoped for the best.  I figured because it was so large that it would fall, but to my great surprise, the lot rose beautifully. When I pulled it out of the oven, it was puffed, brown, and done through.  I would never have tried it for company, but I was very pleased.

I did some laundry and left the souffle to cool while I went to buy cat litter (I had forgotten it earlier), and when I got home, I divided the cooled (and deflated) souffle into lunches for the week, eating the rest of it for lunch today.  Tasty indeeed.

By the time I got all that done, got the kitchen cleaned up, and got ready, it was almost time for Gary to arrive.  I had coordinated for us to have sushi with the boys tonight.  We met at Irashiai, and the food was good, although the waiter brought us the wrong plate, and insisted it was what we ordered.  We ate it, but I was not best pleased.  I had asked that they not invite a bunch of people to dinner.  Gary put in notice at his job today, and it was an emotional day for him.  Plus I invited them to meet Gary, not the whole hootenanny.   But Russ being Russ, they had scheduled a game night tonight.  Gary is not good with groups of people all at once, but he was game to go over.

We went to the house, and Jay, Eric, Brian, Bill, John, and Jake showed up.  It was a passel o' folks.  Logan had a new game he wanted to play tonight called Ladies and Gentlemen.  Gary and I went outside with Russ to take a tour of the patio and plants. When we came back in about a half hour later, they were going over the rules.  They continued that for at least another half hour - this was without playing at all.  Oy. 

We hung out for a bit and had a drink, but I was wiped, and Gary was a bit overwhelmed.  The instructions for the game went on and on with no signs of the game beginning.  Eventually, we said goodnight and took our leave.  After some canoodling, I was out like a light.