I'd like to thank everyone who has provided me with recipes. Over the past few weeks, some of my memorable meals have included penne with oven roasted red peppers and mozzarella (recipe by way of naomikritzer), vegetarian fajitas (recipe by way of shirtyyid), and linguine with gorgonzola and pine nuts (posted to easyrecipes by triath). I'm happy to say that all of these recipes turned out well and provided me not only with dinner, but also with food for at least one lunch.

My sister-in-law also recently sent me a number of recipes that she and my brother like to make. Among them are a couple of risotto recipes. I luuurve risotto, but had never tried making it myself. Tonight, though, I made a spinach risotto. I hadn't realized how labor intensive risotto is before I started. If I left the risotto for even a couple minutes it started to stick to the pan. So, I sat there and patiently stirred, adding the broth bit by bit. I like eating more than I like cooking, so I always feel cheated I put a lot of time into making something and it doesn't translate into a work of staggering deliciousness when it's all done. But, the risotto was worth the 20 minutes spent patiently stirring, and all the dirty dishes making it ended up entailing. It was that good. I'm glad I bought plenty of arborio rice, as I think I'm going to be exploring other risotto recipes. There's one more that my sister-in-law sent me - a mushroom and green pea risotto. I'll probably try that one next week.

In spite of all this good eating, buying a house has been pretty good for me healthwise. I don't know if it's because I'm eating out less, or because I've started spending my evenings working out via painting prep, but I've lost about 5 lbs in the last two weeks.