Fresh!

Now this is going to sound odd, but it's one of those small things that makes me happy, so here it goes... I love cutting up fresh food and making a delicious meal from it. I don't know why, but when I can visit the produce section and come away with a lot of fresh vegetables and make a meal from them, it really gets me going. I don't like meals where I throw a whole bunch of cans together to get some concoction or start from a box to create a predetermined meal. Ok, well, I do like the taste of those meals at times, I just am more satisfied when I start from scratch with raw materials and build up.

Tonight I made Rachael Ray's Chicken Satay Stir-Fry with Orange Scented Jasmine Rice and it was amazing. I'm not saying it was amazing because of anything I did, but the recipe itself is amazing. Well done, Rachael Ray. I had a genuine smile on my face as I was cutting up the ingredients and putting them all together. It just made me happy. So I decided to blog about it. (Below is Rachael Ray's picture of this meal, not mine. It's kind of ugly so I thought I'd clarify. :) I would have taken a picture of my finished product but we had a friend over for dinner and I thought he may have thought I was strange for taking a picture of our meal...)

Anyway, I love cutting vegetables. I love using real garlic over garlic powder. I love crying while cutting onions. (Ok, well, kind of...) I love pulling off a recipe and feeding the people I love. Tonight was just a great night to be in the kitchen. I'm lame, I know. But I hope your meal was as splendid as mine was.