All set for the week ahead

Made pumpkin soup with basil yesterday - four servings left.

Cooked a small acorn squash this afternoon, enough for some with dinner tonight and a bit for a couple of lunches.

The salisbury steak is on the last simmer in the gravy, and the dinner rolls are in the oven. There's enough for four, maybe five servings of leftovers of the steak.

The prep dishes are mostly washed, and the previous three strainers full of washed dishes put away. My hands are a bit wrinkly still.

I don't plan to set foot in the kitchen, except to reheat something, until at least Wednesday.

The two packages of hamburger I used were the last of the "big" packages of stuff in the freezer, I think. The rest of the freezer is full of individually packaged (or repackaged, if I bought in bulk) chicken breast, salmon, turkey Italian sausage and a small steak or two. Well, there are a couple of turkey drumsticks, to cook up for soup. And a very small, very lonely oxtail. Operation Cook It Up is going very well.

Leftovers for lunch, especially this time of year when the leftovers tend to be warm things like salisbury steak, chili and casseroles, really makes the day. If I work it right, lunch is the larger meal of the day, and I can just zap some (home made and frozen) soup for dinner.

Tomorrow night after work I need to stop to pick up some potatoes. I discovered when I pulled out the bag I had to make the potato-gratin this afternoon that the potatoes had...mostly gone south. There weren't enough to make the full gratin, and I'm not sure they would even have made it to a half recipe. Since the leeks are already washed and chopped, I'd like to give this recipe a try. Besides, it's covered in melted Swiss cheese, one of life's biggest blessings.

At some point, I really need to start having people over again. The last time I fed anyone was during the murder mystery, and I deliberately kept the food really simple.

Laundry got done this weekend as well, though it's still waiting for me to make a trip to the basement to get it. I'm prewashing some pretty batik fabrics as well, and those need to be moved over to the dryer.

Except for the fact that zero of the much needed cleaning has yet been done this weekend, I've been pretty domestic. I even, on impulse, took fifteen minutes to clear out the cupboard above the coffeemaker, where the coffee, filters, mugs, flavorings, "company" tray and packages of instant cocoa live. Does that count as "real" cleaning?

I'm off to do some serious nothing until Once Upon a Time starts...