Penne with Artichokes, Asparagus au Gratin and Kitty Prozac

    I should be cleaning my room right now, but blogging is so much more fun.  Plus, my husband has watch tonight, so that means he won't be back until midnight, which also means that he's not here to see me sitting on my butt doing nothing when I'm surrounded by a mess.  Not that he'd say anything if he did see me doing that.  But then I'd have guilt. Then he might comment on how I never sit down and enjoy doing nothing, and then the guilt would multiply, and I'd pop off some smart alec comment before jumping up like a scalded cat to go clean something.  Yeah, it's better that he's not here to see me do nothing.

     Yesterday I had a very enjoyable visit with my mom and step-daddy who came to Biloxi for the weekend and decided to drop by.  When we normally see each other, it's at their house, and I'm usually there for some big family get-together, and there's a crowd of people, and everyone's fighting for everyone else's attention.  Needless to say a little one-on-one time was nice.  While my mom got the full effects of having Monkey all to herself, and Monkey reveled in the fact that all of her "Juju's" attention was on herself, I was cooking away :-)  I made Penne with Artichokes and Asparagus au Gratin.  Both were wonderful.  The Penne was simple yet filling, where as the asparagus was....how shall I put this?  Divine!  The creamy, rich "gratin" was amazing over those yummy asparagus spears.  I was extremely pleased with how they turned out, especially considering that I was cooking for my step-daddy.

    My step-daddy was the one who first got me interested in cooking.  He's part Italian, and it shows when he's in the kitchen.  I remember him spouting out phrases like "The Holy Trinity of cooking: bell pepper, onion, and gar-loc" as he'd throw random ingredients into a pan, stir, simmer, and saute until it was perfect, and we'd all rush to the kitchen to eat.  One of my favorite things to do as a kid was watch him work.  He was a master at many things: bbq, jambalya, pastas, steak, pork chops, etc. etc.  I'd watch him do it all, and if I could help, I was right there.  He'd have me chopping onions, peeling garlic, mixing up the ground meat, and I loved it.  To this day when I go home for a visit, I usually ease my way into the kitchen or outside next to the bbq pit to see what he's got up his sleeve.  To cook for him was one of those rare things I'd been looking forward to, so you can imagine my relief when everything came out scrum-didly-umptious.  And of course, I took pictures.
 

 

    And keeping with my theme of laziness, I'm not retyping the recipes, but I did insert link, so if you're interested just click on the name of the recipe listed above.

    I know at least one of you out there is a cat lover, so you may find this slightly entertaining.  My cat, VooDoo has been acting weird lately.  He's not affectionate like normal.  He's stopped grooming himself.   He doesn't want to play or eat or cuddle.  All he wants to do is sleep.  (No this isn't the entertaining part.)  He's been like this for about two weeks now, and I finally pointed it out to my husband who had two very interesting theories on the subject.  The first is that our cat is suffering from withdraws from his new catnip addiction.  For Christmas I bought VooDoo one of those stockings filled with toys, but I didn't notice that they were filled with catnip.  After being berated by my darling J for about half an hour on my bad ethics as a kitty mama, I finally took to the internet to rest my case.  Cats cannot become addicted to catnip as it is non-habit forming.  Scratch that theory, Sherlock.

    J's second theory is that our cat is depressed.  He seems to think that because he's been too busy to play with VooDoo lately, VooDoo suddenly has a case of the blues.  Since Google was already open on my laptop, I was relying on it to squash yet another goofy theory.  The problem was this one was actually true.  Cats can get depressed.  They even have a checklist to see if your cat is.  And according to said checklist our poor kitty needs some happy pills.  J is now convinced that we have a depressed, possibly suicidal cat, and I went ahead and made a vet appointment.  I'm still trying to figure out how I'm writing blogs about throwing myself into a train and basically eating my feelings of boredom, but the cat gets the Prozac.  Do they even make kitty Prozac?  I may have to Google that one.

Are you finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning?  Do you no longer have the desire to lick yourself clean?  Would you rather not chase the infernal light that always disappears right when you pounce?  You may need Kitty Prozac.  Talk to you veterinarian today!  
*Kitty Prozac may be habit-forming.  Do not take Kitty Prozac while operating heavy machinery, hanging out with aggressive dogs, or attempting to jump off of high places.  You should not mix Kitty Prozac with catnip or other drugs.  If you feel dizzy, weak or if your depression worsens seek help immediately.*