Real Dinner

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't been cooking nor writing much this week - a combination of teaching a workshop on library cataloging, getting took out for my birthday, (had the pan-seared sole, it was good, but can't say I was in love; Mark's swordfish was seriously undercooked, red in the middle, and the service was leisurely at best) potlucks, and other people's parties conspired to prevent me from cooking. (Tho I did make chicken wraps with Asian peanut sauce for Chris' party yesterday - and it was a really good peanut sauce; I want to make it again, on noodles with grated pickled carrots)

Tonight, I made a real dinner - meatloaf, with buttered pasta and Romano green beans that came in my CSA box. The meatloaf was an Italian variety, made from turkey and pork sausage, which makes a lighter-textured loaf than beef. It's from an NYT recipe that included a story about cooking it for Nora Ephron - this loaf was the writer's fall back on when he had problems with the first one. His version's funnier than mine, so go read that. In the story, it said to serve the loaf with buttered pasta with mint, but in the recipe it said to toss torn mint over the loaf before you sliced it. I opted for the former, and I had a few leaves of basil from the pots on the back deck, so I tossed them into the pasta as well. Mark said while we were eating it that he could taste it in sandwiches already. Me too.
I also made cookies & juice for a games afternoon for the vegetarian group I've cooked for before. And got one surprisingly good photo of vegan gingersnaps, which were also surprisingly good - but the recipe is really just a standard gingersnap recipe, made with margarine instead of butter, and a little water instead of egg. And gingersnaps are often made with vegetable oil, anyways, even when you're cooking for those who indulge in animal products.