Upcoming Recipes! Other Mindless Blabbering!

I promise there will be good recipes with horrible pictures in the next few days. I actually added my own touch to some of these so they're not 100% copied either! I am developing as a leisure chef :)

• Coconut Rum Chocolate Cupcakes
• Roasted Beet Gnocchi with Creamy Goat Cheese Sauce and Balsamic Reduction (to commemorate the day of Serious Beets perhaps?)
• Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Maple Browned Butter Sauce
• Thai Chicken Soup
• Shrimp... something.

Tonight I decided I'd get a ton of cooking done so that I could blog about it later. I made the first three items on that list.

Holy MOLY I am tired!

So tired that I didn't even eat dinner. I had two nibbles of each gnocchi and then a cupcake. My back hurts. Exhausted.

I learned that gnocchi is difficult to make in an aesthetic sense. I always make mine too large, as they puff up a lot when you boil them, and they end up looking squishy and bloated and way too big. They taste amazing though, which is what I suppose counts. If I was on Top Chef I'd get demerits on appearance only.

Also, this week I bought the following things:

• Two salad plates
• Two cereal bowls
• Two large white plates
• Two large green plates
• Two red bamboo placemats
• Two beige bamboo placemats
• Four wooden spoons
• A Silicone spatula
• An electric mixer
• A meat mallet/tenderizer
• An oven thermometer
• An "easy chopper"
• A frosting tip kit
• $80 worth of groceries

I'm going crazy, I know. I'm putting way too much money into this little hobby of mine. But I realized something today--when I saw my grocery total, I felt a bit of peace, despite it being higher than I would have liked. As I was flouring and rolling out my gnocchis my mind was clear. It was like meditation. Stirring the sauces and frosting the cupcakes I marveled at the smells and textures of what I was making. Sure, I fantasize about this blog gaining popularity, of the perks that could come with that, but even as I realized that what I spent this week may never be "made back" with this blog, what I'm gaining by nurturing my growing foodie passion is so much more valuable.

The blog I left behind three months ago (the one I'd had for four years but closed due to some privacy  issues), and the one I started a few weeks later only to also leave behind soon after, had become outlets for me to be dissatisfied with my life. I complained about being idle, about having nothing to do. I came home and vegged on the internet and fell asleep and complained about it.

This blog has a purpose. It's still so new but it gets me DOING something, it keeps me doing something. When I cook, I'm happy. When I blog here about it, it's reminding myself of that good feeling--so I'm feeling it twice! There's no room for negativity in this blog, aside from the lighthearted "my pics look like poo" comments. And doing this, I'm working towards a goal, be it something self-serving like more commenters and followers or potential revenue in the far, far future, or something more, I don't know, fun?, like making new friends and sharing new recipes and expanding and sharing my knowledge of the culinary world. All day I think up new ideas, things I want to try, from new recipes to new tactics to make my point-and-shoot look a little snazzier.

I'm having so much fun already, and I know that will only grow with time. Welcome to my journey, friends, stick with me, I feel good about this.

Oooh... original Iron Chef is on, SWEET!