Tuesday (or maybe it's Sunday)

I awoke on Tuesday at about 4:30 AM. I tossed and turned a bit, then reluctantly got up and posted the Blog entry.

I went back to bed and turned off the alarm (set for the garbage pickup). As a result, I woke up about 9:00 AM. I immediately checked outside and found the garbage guys had already been here. Crap! They usually don't pick my stuff up until after noon!!

I made a fresh pot of coffee and drank about three cups, sitting on the couch and ruminating... At my age, I ruminate a lot...

For some reason, I thought it was Sunday, but that didn't matter until later... This working only every now and then really messes with your mind!

I didn't have much to do (the house is clean and all the laundry is done), so I just putzed a while.

Then I went and watched the taped Sunday morning Food network shows. I ate some large curd cottage cheese topped with salt and fresh ground pepper for breakfast/lunch.

I eventually fell asleep and took a two hour nap. When I woke up, I called my friend B___ to see how he was doing.

After we hung up, I started thinking about dinner so I took out that leftover broccoli from the freezer. Now, I do have a small steamer basket, but it's way too little for this amount! So, I put about three inches of water in my small stockpot, turned the burner on high and balanced my metal colander on top of the stockpot.

When the water was boiling, I dumped in the thawed broccoli and added the stockpot lid. While that steamed, I made the cheese sauce.

I melted two tablespoons of butter in my medium saucepan and added in 1/2 cup of fine diced onion. I cooked them until they were translucent and then added three tablespoons of flour. I cooked that for about two minutes and then removed it from the heat. I added in 1 1/2 cups of hot milk (heated up in the microwave) and whisked it in.

I returned it to the heat and brought it back to a simmer. I slowly stirred in two cups of shredded sharp cheddar cheese. I added the broccoli to the cheese mixture and then added my twist on this casserole recipe: one pound of Morrell cubed ham (I taste-tested it first to judge the salt level. It was fine.)

I put the mixture into a buttered casserole dish. While I preheated the oven to 350 degrees, I crushed up Ritz crackers until I had 1 1/2 cups. I put that into two tablespoons of melted butter and tossed that around.

I topped the casserole with the crackers and put it in the oven for 20 minutes or so (until it was bubbly and lightly browned). I let it cool for a bit and then plated it.

Hmmm... I'm not that impressed. The broccoli flavor overpowers both the cheese and the ham flavors. Crap! There goes another recipe idea...

Because I'd slept in late and had that nap, I stayed up late, going to bed after the Tonight show.