Three Beautiful Things 09-18-2023: New Plans for the Weekend, Cooking Risotto, New Clean Sheets

1. Mark, Peter, and I had planned to meet in Spokane for two nights this week, starting Thursday. The three of us have not been in Spokane or on the Whitworth campus together since we were students there.

Mark called me this morning. His wife, Linda, is in the hospital with sepsis and cellulitis. We postponed our get together.

I decided, later in the day, that I would go to Spokane for a solo trip on Friday, spend the night, and come home Saturday. I'll spend some time Tuesday making plans and finding a place to stay. 

I'll have fun seeing Stop Making Sense at the IMAX and dining out and possibly taking in another source of entertainment.

I will be fervently hoping and praying that Linda recovers. 

I enjoy hanging out in Spokane by myself, but whatever I do will only be a shadow of the fun Peter, Mark, and I would have had.

2. For the second night in a row, I cooked something I'd never done before. On Sunday, I fixed basted pork chops, a first. Tonight, thanks to HelloFresh, I made risotto -- not only did I make it for the first time, I think this was the first time I ever ate risotto.

I chopped zucchini and halved grape tomatoes and roasted them.

I boiled a pot of five cups of water. 

In a large pan, I cooked the shallot I chopped up and then added a packet of arborio rice, chopped sun-dried tomatoes,  minced garlic, vegetable stock concentrate and more Tuscan heat spice blend than the recipe called for. 

I cooked this for a short while and then for the next, oh, I'd say, twenty minutes, I cooked the rice, starting with a cup of boiling water, stirring it, letting the rice absorb the liquid, and then repeating this several times with half cups of water.

When I finished cooking the rice, I added a packet of cream sauce base and more Tuscan heat spice blend.  Then I added and stirred in a generous chunk of butter and Parmesan cheese. Once the butter melted, I added and stirred in half of the roasted zucchini and grape tomatoes.

I put the risotto in bowls for Debbie and me, topped each bowl with the rest of the roasted zucchini and grape tomatoes and more Parmesan cheese.

It was a fun dish to make, and best of all

It worked! 

3. I ordered a new set of sheets for our queen bed. I laundered them. Today, I put them on the bed. It's a small luxury, having new clean sheets. Small, yes, but a source of pleasure.