I have not been feeling too hot lately and therefore haven’t found much energy for cooking, but yesterday I decided there was only one way to get out of this slump. MY KITCHEN!
So I invited a friend over for dinner, knowing this would make me have to do something productive. I would never dream of serving a guest apples for dinner, that is just bad form.

Brave souls my friends have, accepting dinner invitations that begin with “I feel like shit, sooo…”. This isn’t the first time I have recruited a friend for mission help cheer me up… and I am sure it won’t be the last. Once it was settled, that A was going to show up for dinner, and I felt my mood improvement number 1, I set about looking through the pantry, where I found my inherited bread machine.

I began my first attempt at bread. yesterday at 11 AM. I just used a standard white bread recipe, I would post it here but if you have a bread machine you should have the recipe in you manual. 3 hours later with minimal effort I had a fresh warm loaf of bread on my counter, mood improvement number 2. At almost the exact moment I was turning the bread out of the pan A called to see if I had decided what we were having. I still hadn’t gotten beyond the bread.  Strangely this didn’t scare A at all, mood improvement number 3.

Now this is the funny/sad part, at 3 in the afternoon I still hadn’t showered. Actually I was still in slippers and a warm fuzzy bathrobe, proof of the slump I was in, I guess.

In the shower I started thinking about what we could eat with the bread: pasta, meatloaf, steak, soup…. and then it hit me, roast beef. Open faced roast beef with… mashed potatoes! And in the tradition I have created of talking to my self when I am thinking about food I said, out loud, “Yes, today is a roast beef day!” mood improvement number 4. Did I mention I was in the shower?

For dinner I peeled, cubed and boiled 2 large potatoes. I smashed ‘em up and added about 3 tablespoons of butter, half cup of sour cream, then I generously seasoned the potatoes with salt and pepper.

At the The overly cheerful girl at the deli sliced a pound of the rarest roast beef she had thin

I thinly sliced 1/2 an onion, 5 mushrooms and a half of a jalapeno. I also took a bout 4 slices off a block of mozzerella I melted some butter and added the veggies, sauteed and seasoned them until the were soft and yummy. When the veggies were to my liking, I added about half a pound of the rarest roast beef the cheerful girl at the deli had. After pushing it around a bit here and a bit there, heating it through, I arranged the cheese slices on to and put a lid on it. Once the cheese melted, I topped each  slice of bread with the roast beef and  a generous dollop of mashed potatoes.

It was a success. Watch A coo in delight while eating a meal that I cooked was just what I need to wake from my slump.