Fresh Friday — The Tugboat

I got some feedback from my two regular (ish) readers saying they liked the photo version so I’ll blend the two methods today. That and I took enough pictures to do that.

I was up shortly after six today. The early to bed, early to rise addage still works. I got myself showered, dressed and ready to rock early. The day was absolutely gorgeous. It was crisp but not cold and the sun was bright and the sky beautiful. I was out of the house before seven to get a McBreakfast ahead of my bi-weekly grocery excursion. I had to get stocked up with the appropriate ingredients for the Family Feast. It was a treat to be out in the world on a morning like this. Although my English oak tree has seen better times. Buds are coming though.

I carefully unloaded all the food and got it stowed. You can see from the photo that I got a lot more fresh material than normal. Some is for the family feast but others are for better meal decisions. We’ll see what I come up with, hopefully those items don’t even up rotten in the bin. After geting my bounty put away I went to work, starting at half eight. I had a couple hours to myself to make things happen before starting a series of calls that would take me well into the afternoon. I told my boss that I was planning to be out at three to take some personal time, planning to get my tax return and look at my yard. He was doing the same and was exicted that I was taking time away from work.

I wasable to slip away for a half hour between calls and I warmed up these prizes from Tuesday. I was shocked how much oranger the one had turned. It makes me think that it was an orange pepper than hadn’t finished ripening yet. Either way, they got the microwave treatment and were a filling and tasty lunch. Normal people might have had one and something else but this is who I am. I made relatively short work of them while clearing my podcast queue.

Right after eating disaster struck. I had a glass watering ball in the plant on the counter. I had filled it in the morning and stuck it back in. I’m not sure what spurred it but it seemed to have had enough of this world and took a headlong dive forward off the counter. In reality the soil shifted, I guess I didn’t jam it in hard or deep enought (that’s what she said) and it tumbled. It scared the crap out of me and wasn’t a fun mess to clean up. There was a considerable amount of water in it and the glass shot in many directions. I had to be very careful. It was strange cause a call had cancelled while I was eating so I was going to have some extra time to myself. Nope, universe wanted that time used to clean up a mess. I went back to work for a few hours and stopped shortly after three as I presecribed. Rather than get my tax return I played HomeScapes for over an hour until it was time to prepare for the Family Feast night. We made Sausage Gnocchi with Garlickly Broccoli Rabe. Except none of us had broccoli rabe, we all just used regular broccoli. More on it below the photos.

STL sister had some strange coloured sausage.

Parents. Big T added a pickle for some reason.

This was the easiest of the recipes to make so far. We just boiled the pasta in salted water, then scooped it out and boiled the broccoli until tender. Strain those and keep a cup of the water. In the now empty pot, or dutch oven, brown your sausage (in a tablespoon of olive oil) that you’ve released from it’s casing prison and then add three cloves of sliced garlic. When the garlic smells great you add the broccoli, pasta, water and some red pepper flakes and fresh black pepper (to taste). I let mine marinate for a few minutes so the water would thicken with starch from the gnocchi. It was tremendous. Very simple but rich dinner. The burps I had after were intense, so be warned.

It was finally time to fetch my tax return so during the chat portion of the video call I got myself cleaned up and ready to leave the home. I rudely disconnected and made my way across town again. I picked up my documents and was home in good time. I listened to my audiobook and did some scanning of the internet for availability of Xbox X before falling asleep around ten.