I have been delinquent...

And now I have a lot to catch up on.

First, foodie things. Ever since I got sick, I've been eating a lot less red meat, because it does icky things to me, and you know, as much as I like chicken and fish, I can't really eat it all the time, so I've been trying some vegetables (I know!).

Anyway, every summer I crave fried eggplant. When I was a kid, my mom and I used to make it together - she'd do the slicing and battering, and I'd do the frying in a portable deep fryer out on the deck in the backyard. It's one of those things that's not really hard to make, but it makes me feel grown-up to be able to make it myself simply because I associate it with my childhood. I don't know how that works exactly, lol, but it makes sense in my head.

I don't think you really need a recipe - slice, dunk (in egg, then bread crumbs), and fry pretty much covers it. I, unfortunately, had to make do with frying them in a big pan on the stove, which I worried would be terribly messy, but it actually worked out pretty well. I love to eat 'em plain when they're hot and crispy right out of the pan, but I saved some to make eggplant parmigiana, too.

The other thing I have been super excited about is spaghetti squash. I don't know, maybe it's not a novelty to most people, but I just discovered it and thought it was the coolest thing ever. It's squash that acts like spaghetti, how awesome is that? I found a recipe for Spaghetti Squash with Ricotta, Sage, and Pine Nuts and was dying to try it. Sadly, I'd had a lot of trouble finding said squash in order to make it. My regular supermarket didn't seem to carry it, but I tried a different store one weekend and lo, there it was!

It was almost as exciting as I'd anticipated, although cleaning out the seeds reminded me why I don't usually bother carving Halloween pumpkins, lol. But there was this total "OMG awesome!" moment when I scraped it with the fork and it came out spaghetti-like. (I'm easily amused.) It's super easy to make, although I noticed the recipe doesn't say anything about draining or wringing out the squash before mixing with the cheese... there was a bit of a puddle in the bottom of the bowl with my leftovers. The other quibble I had was that the recipe was a little bland. I couldn't find fresh sage (WTF, supermarket?) and used dried instead, so that may have been a factor.