It’s been a long week with my new job and more regular hours than I had been working for the past few months. Today is a beautiful, bright, sunny day and I plan to spend it cleaning my house.

But first, I want to express my surprise with myself for cooking from scratch three excellent meals this past week. I’m not including recipes at this point because of time constraints, but I really must express how shocked I was to find joy in cooking this week! Joy in cooking is a component that I have been missing for several years now! But by the time I made my third meal this week, I was on a roll – rather than agonizing over every detail as I usually do, I just followed my instincts and it came out better than edible!

The first meal was a red potato and Swiss chard soup with smoked paprika. This is the second time I’ve made such a soup and I’ll make it again, so I’ll post pics and a recipe in the future. We chose to go out to eat the next day and I didn’t eat leftovers until the third day, at which point, the chard was too soggy and made me gag! I’ll have to keep that in mind. The rest of the leftovers will be tossed.

Monday night,  I made another meal from scratch – a stir fry using only what was in my fridge and cupboards (a big step for me as I often go to the store before I cook).

I made a marinade for the tofu using soy sauce, sesame oil, red pepper flakes, and a bit of rice wine vinegar. Next time, I’ll use more marinade, for longer, and leave out the vinegar.

I included tons of garlic to please my husband, onion, broccoli, carrot, and napa cabbage. I wasn’t pleased with all that cabbage, as it made the veggies a bit soggy, but my husband really liked it (that’s sometimes all that matters).

The brown rice was quite soggy, as usual, but again, my husband didn’t mind. The next day, I mixed it all together with a dash of soy sauce, sriracha hot chili sauce, and hoisin sauce and it was divine!

Tuesday night I really surprised myself and whipped up a potato, fennel, and pea casserole with onion cream sauce. I served it with my first perfect salad without bagged lettuce and a home made vinaigrette. My husband ate it with some leftover roasted chicken and I ate it with a Boca Burger – eaten with a knife and fork, no bun.