Three Things

In the last twenty-four hours, roughly, I’ve had three ‘why did it take so long to do this?’ moments. All about as unrelated as possible:

1. Even after I recently started putting both cats in one carrier for car rides, I always had to deal with a lot of end-of-the-world cries from Birdy (though it was definitely better than when they traveled in their own crates). I would load Birdy up and then put Beany in, my logic being that Beany is the wilier of the two and more likely to slip out if I tried to load Birdy second. But on the way down to Minneapolis this last time, I happened to put Beany in first, and I did it again on the way back — and lo and behold, much less complaining. There’s still a bit of ‘SOMEBODY, HELP! SOMEBODY! SHE’S GOING TO KILL ME!!’ histrionics in the ten seconds between my picking her up and getting to the crate. But then she sees Beany is already in there and is all, ‘Oh, hey. Heh. Sorry, guys, false alarm.’ And then the rest of the trip can be done in relative silence. Funny how much difference such a little thing makes.

2. I bought a Kreg jig for drilling pocket holes back in… I’m going to guess June. For some reason, I’ve been really intimidated by it. I didn’t even open it up until I started building the dogs’ crate, and then I just quietly closed it and backed away. But I wanted to build a quick box/frame for something early this morning (I’ll get back to that project in a later post), and I decided I would NOT be bested by a small piece of plastic. And… it’s really easy. Like, stupidly easy. I’m going to drill pocket holes in everything, and soon every piece of furniture in the house will be attached to its neighbor.

3. Finally, the photo above. I decided to make this recipe for lunch today, even though I was feeling a little wishy-washy about it. Basically, I was worried it would be a bland pile of vegetables with sour balsamic vinegar on top. But I should know by now that everything (probably) on The Naked Kitchen is awesome. I had to make substitutions, including using edamame in place of the chickpeas, and I definitely would love to include asparagus and cauliflower next time. I slightly over-roasted the vegetables (don’t care! still SO GOOD!), but it was the balsamic reduction that I was most impressed by, anyway. That’s my last ‘can’t believe it took so long…’ moment — I’ve never made a balsamic reduction. I’m generally not crazy about balsamic vinegar — it’s sort of cloying in its sickly sweet/sour-ness. I don’t dislike it, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to think of opportunities to use it. But I’ve got a really nice bottle of aged balsamic vinegar (a gift from my aunt and uncle), and it turned into pure magic when it was reduced. So, so sweet, with only the slightest tang — perfect. I also loved the half-crisp kale leaves — not crumbly like kale chips, but not limp like over-cooked kale. Another home-run recipe!