It’s been good to stay somewhere on my own for a while, to cook all my own food and clean up afterwards, take care of the animals, and otherwise just get to read and write and watch the television series adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.
My only complaint about the show is that the actor who plays Morpheus shamelessly ripped off the Robert Pattinson as Batman aesthetic. It’s very funny but also incredibly distracting, which detracts somewhat from my ability to suspend disbelief. Otherwise it’s a fun show.
The thing about being the only human in a house for several weeks is that I can talk to myself out loud without worrying about being overheard, sing whenever I feel like singing, make food at strange hours, and subsist almost entirely on peanut butter cookies for two days straight, and nobody is there to ask inconvenient questions.
Hasn’t just been peanut butter cookies. There was also chocolate zucchini cake.
This week I’ve been escaping into the woods in the nearby state parks as much as possible. There have been creeks and gorges and waterfalls. It’s lovely. Walking up and down hills in the woods is one of the best things I am capable of doing for my brain.
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Here’s the recipe for the soup I made, twice, because the first batch turned out unexpectedly well:
Sauté a chopped onion, more sliced carrots than you think you need, and one chopped bell pepper in olive oil in the bottom of a pot. (Regret peppers later.)
Add two cloves of sliced garlic and cook until soft. Then add cubed potatoes, corn, canned chickpeas, green beans, tomato, and vegetable broth. These were just the vegetables I had on hand at the time.
Simmer until the potatoes are soft when poked with a fork. Add some spinach.
Season with rosemary, parsley – whatever you have that goes together. (You have to sing the Simon & Garfunkel song as you do this or it won’t turn out right.)
Add too much salt.
Serve hot with sourdough toast, if you have some. I feel like any bread would be fine.