Unexpectedly Wonderful Dinner

Woke up early to finish up a freelance gig, played with B&E, fell asleep on the couch and when I awoke momma-in-law was here looking after things and I had a craving for pizza. Some of B's relatives were visiting from out of town, and Edie magically slept through most of their visit. We strapped Birdie into our stroller and took her on her first stroll out of the house, to CVS and then to the green space behind our building. Her eyes were darting everywhere, it was quite amazing.

Still ate a bit too much, but more under control.

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, organic cheerios with organic dead milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1pm, 2 slices of local streetza, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, small slice of chocolate caramel tart, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Fortunately due to house guests, I was able to finish this without eating too much of it. But there's a whole other one in the freezer....

PM SNACK: 5pm, chocolate ganache, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
I doubled up on the heavy cream when I was making ganache for the top layer of the tart, so I put it aside and started over again, correctly. So this was 2 cups of heavy cream to 16 oz 70% dark chocolate. Cream brought to a boil, then chopped chocolate dropped in and stirred until smooth. When chilled, it's suppose to set to a nice solid consistency, but the high heavy cream would keep in mushy. I thought I'd drop it in the ice cream maker and see what came out, but when I dipped a spatula in.....it had the consistency of pudding!! Or realllllly concentrated hot chocolate. I tasted it....a bit gritty from chocolate not melted enough, but still over the top yummy. The kind of mess a home cook would make, but wouldn't dare serve to a guest.

DINNER: 9:30pm, mushroom seaweed rice with shrimp, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Granny has been in the house al day helping out, so there was no way I was gonna feed her left overs. Easy-ass meal to make, came out really good. Sushi rice, aramay seaweed, olive oil, minced shallot, salt and half strong mushroom stock (made from slightly off morels from the resto), all in the rice cooker, turn on and walk away. When that came up done in 30 minutes, took some shrimp out of the freezer, cleaned and deveined under water, dipped in oil and herbs de Provence and salt, into a blazing hot pan. Flamed up, which surprised me. After 20 seconds, tossed in some sake to deglaze so I could flip them without tearing them up, beautiful browning. After another 20 seconds, right onto the large bowl with a cute little mound of the pleasingly umami-infused brown-tinted rice with strings of soft green threads. Wow. I would pay money for this meal in a restaurant.

Nice when you just improvise with stuff that's been sitting around forever and just explodes is flavor. I was considering softening the shallot in a pan and toasting the rice before hitting up the machine, but I....was just too lazy. Glad I was, because it's simplicity is going make me want to make it again. Now I just need to get my hands on another 10 lbs of free morels...