I love to cook. Love. Love. Love it.

Or maybe it's just that I love. Love. Love to eat. I'm not sure.

But my love of homemade food has triggered an even bigger love- the love of take out. Since SO MUCH of me goes into producing our sustenance, the simple act of purchasing a box of crackers at the store feels like a totally sinful decadence...the purchase of girl scout cookies (with their high fructose corn syrup) could well damn me straight to hell.

I find myself apologizing for buying Triscuits. As though I'd actually done something WRONG.

I like Triscuits. A lot. And MissAngelLittleGirl will eat an entire box in one sitting if I let her. A performance that's highly unusual, as I'm 80 percent sure that child is going to willfully starve to death one of these days.

I'll bet she's going to be a truly successful foodie one day.

This week I both ordered a pizza, (gasp)AND bought crackers. I'm feeling totally devilish and decadent.

And like I really, really, really need a life. In the worst possible way. So tonight, after another particularly LONG kind of day, the take out monster was REALLY beating about in my brain. I'd planned meatless tonight...I wanted meat...I'd REALLY been working hard all day...the kids were kind of being jerks...I'd just saved thirty dollars by cutting their hair myself, which is kind of like an epic steel cage match with the little one...surely I deserved a break.

It was a potato pancake kind of night. The logical mommy won. This time.

My potato pancakes aren't really my own- they're a Giada knock off-easy, pretty darn versatile as I've read the ingredients ONE TIME and made it my own. Which really means throwing mass amounts of ingredients into a bowl and hoping. Usually works out well!

So I do about 4 potatoes, grated, soaked, and dried thoroughly, 1 package of shredded Parmesan, 4 cloves of garlic and one onion, small diced and sauteed gently, two fistfuls of basil, (that's a measurement, right? I'll make it simple, more basil= yum.)

Salt and pepper to taste, and this is what you get:

Now, I like to put these on my well greased nonstick griddle, so I do it at 400, and I cover them with an upside down cookie sheet to help the potatoes cook through in the center.

They take about ten minutes per side, but you can peek if you want after the edges look nice and brown.

And yes, I serve them with applesauce and sour cream. Even though my oldest says that's weird.

Evil takeout monster crisis averted...for now.

Is it a crime if I blow up my kitchen slightly on purpose?

I like to think of myself as an earth friendly kind of girl. I don't dye my hair, I save clothes from one child to the next, my thermostat is set at sixty downstairs during the day, fifty at night, and upstairs stays completely off till bed time.




These things are not simply because I'm cheap.

I promise. Well, not completely because I'm cheap. We recycle. We freecycle. We do our part to keep our trash put out minimal. I try not to use harmful chemicals. I'm a big fan of vinegar and Burt's bees-not together of course.

I swear to God, I'm going to drop an atom bomb on my kitchen.

It's inhabited by strange, stretchy, acrobatic mice. The little bastards are effing cute as hell. And gross. And... scampery. Yes. I'm aware that's not a word. But it should be. It should be a word to describe the little monsters that appear to be performing circus acrobatics on their trek to the Land Behind My Stove.

That's MY STOVE. You. Little. Bastards.

I swear, I honestly swear, I'm so freaking serious, I will buy poison if I see one more. One more cute, fuzzy, icky, stretchy, gotta-be-mutated freakish little mouse dude.

I will buy poison, and screw the earth.

Amen.