And on the seventh day, she rested.

It is currently 5:50pm on Sunday, March 6 - the day on which my two, dear, unrelated friends, Colette and Amelia, were born by the way - and I have spent most of the day sleeping. We slept in until almost noon (the luxury!), and I have taken approximately three naps on the couch. I feel awake now, but goodness.  I've been just plain exhausted for the last week...I blame a draining day at jury duty on Monday and a week playing catch-up at work, and what the hell?  I'll also blame Will's being in Utah for work, which means my sleep schedule got all wonked out, because I have no will power (ha) when he's gone and usually end up staying up way too late watching Sex and the City marathons and movies starring Julia Roberts.  It's like I revert back into college-Kim when he's gone or something.

The other thing that happens when he's gone? I lose most of my motivation to cook.  I don't know what it is about cooking for one, but I am very rarely motivated to try new recipes (or even, apparently, to cook at all).  I ate pizza and macaroni and cheese (both in restaurants) and one night, had a plate of salami and cheese and pickles. And cherry tomatoes, because I wanted to pretend there was something healthy about what I was doing.  This will have to change when he goes on another backpacking trip (though thankfully, this year's trip on the John Muir Trail will be shorter than last year's PCT adventure), because my body doesn't like this whole lack of good diet and sleep thing.

Anyway, I don't know if I was trying to make up for the week of not cooking or what, but I woke up on Saturday ready for action.  I had my friends Suki and Ryan over for a delicious brunch, which means I actually cleaned up a bit around the house. And cooked.  I made my first frittata!  I kind of made up the recipe based on some basic frittata instructions from around the internet, and while I may have overcooked it a tad, it was really good.  I prepared a lox platter that would make any Jewish grandmother (or my dad) proud, and S+R brought delicious fruit from the farmer's market.  Oh, and we had mimosas. I think Suki took better pics than I did, so I hope she posts them so I can steal them.  :)

We also made mango Chobani cake, which turned out very beautifully (and I used my new bundt pan and hand mixer, both free from CSN Stores!).  It's a little dry, which I think could be from over-baking or from using whole wheat flour...or both? Any ideas? It's pretty though, and it's really good with vanilla ice cream.

And then, after exchanging some jeans at GAP and checking out the Totally Awesome New Target That Is Close To My House And Super Shiny Brand New And Huge, I decided to outdo myself and cook a third thing from scratch.

You see, I had the end of a champagne bottle leftover brunch, and y'all know that champers doesn't last long just sitting in the fridge.  So unless I wanted to have a couple glasses just for fun (which, um, not a terrible idea I guess), I would have to get creative.  Not too creative, as it seems this is a fairly common "problem" out there on the internets.  After browsing several recipes (search terms "champagne recipe" "recipes using champagne" and "how to use up the end of a bottle of champagne") and filtering out all the ones for punch (seriously, even I could have come up with "add different kinds of juice and it becomes punch!" - nice one, internet. way to be creative.),  I found this.

Yes friends, that is a recipe for pasta with a sauce made from shrimp, tomatoes, champagne and cream.  And oh lordy, it was delicious.  I had exactly one shallot left, and almost exactly the 1 1/2 cups champagne required.  I used a can of diced tomatoes (rinsed), and a little more cream than required because I accidentally let the sauce reduce a little too far, and I added a smidge of lemon juice both to the pasta and the sauce.  But seriously, so good.  I don't have a picture because we dove in so fast (the smell of champagney, creamy, tomatoey goodness was driving us insane).  There is a tiny container of leftovers, but refrigerated pasta leftovers never photograph very well, do they?

You'll have to use your imaginations.  Try not to be too jealous.  It's ok to be a little bit jealous though.  I would be.  Read the reviews on the recipe page - it really was that good.  This one will definitely be staying in rotation around here...I see it being the traditional dinner during or after any celebration involving champagne.  Who wants to have a party?

Anyway, now perhaps you can see why I was so sleepy today (oh, the justification; oh, the pity party).  It has been a luxurious day of lounging around, sampling a Jewish deli around the corner that I didn't know existed (conclusion: not good. why can't the bay area have any good Jewish delis!?!?!?), and napping.

And now I am getting ready to make dinner for other friends.  I hope your weekends were all lovely!