Meatloaf is for Sandwiches

Sunday night, a package of frozen turkey jumped out of the freezer and tried to assault The Husband while he was rummaging around for a frozen Snickers bar. The container broke on impact and I was faced with two options: repackage the frozen meat and pop it back in the freezer or just put the package in the refrigerator and let it thaw. Letting it thaw was the easiest option and who was I to eschew laziness?

So, a three-pound package of ground turkey thawing in my fridge ... what dish could I make which would use the whole thing and wouldn't require extra shopping? Turkey Loaf? "Incredibly Cheesy Turkey Meatloaf?" Or what about "Turkey and Cheddar Meatloaf?" Hmm. There wasn't a lot of difference between the two, but the second called for more seasonings. In the end, of course, I went my own way ...

Easy Cheesy Turkey Loaf

• ¾ cup milk
• 1 cup panko
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. Salt Free Garlic & Herb Seasoning.
• 1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 3 lbs. lean ground turkey
• 4 oz. Cabot Private Stock Cheddar, coarsely shredded
• ½ cup low-sodium ketchup, divided
• ¼ cup Dijon mustard

In a very large bowl, combine all ingredients (except ¼ cup Dijon & ¼ cup ketchup). Transfer to a 13x9 baking dish and pat into loaf shape. Cover and refrigerate overnight, if desired. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350°, uncover loaf, combine ¼ cup Dijon & remaining ¼ cup ketchup and spread over top of loaf. Bake for about an hour. Remove from oven and let sit about 15 minutes before serving.

This loaf is pretty big (would feed 6-8 people), but that's fine as it will provide many sandwiches over the next few days.

I know, both turkey loaf recipes I looked at called for lots of cubed cheese. So why is there so little cheese in my loaf? Shockingly, for once I did not have lots of cheese on hand! I hoped a smaller amount of freshly shredded strong cheddar might provide a uniform cheesiness and it did -- this loaf tasted like giant turkey cheeseburger and that's no mean thing. Very moist and cheesy, but not falling apart or gooey. Excellent for sandwiches.

Menu Plan Monday, Week Nine

Hallelujah and pass the wine! This is the last week of overtime as my supervisor returns from vacation next week -- we've experienced some major technological upheavals since she left and thus I'm pretty darn happy to give the Authority Hat back come next Monday!

• Overtime Monday: Small storage bowls of leftover cheesy turkey bake, sugar-free peach gelatin with mandarins, dates, sea-salt pita chips, homemade mixed-poultry soup, and chopped salad.
• Tuesday: Mr. Bento packed with salad, mixed-poultry soup, sugar-free gelatin with mandarins, and dates.
  
• Wednesday: All Recipes's "Incredibly Cheesy Turkey Meatloaf" with salad.
  
• Thursday: Mr. Bento packed with blueberries, leftover meatloaf, salad, and sugar-free gelatin with mandarins.
• Slow Cooker Friday: Recipezaar's "Crockpot Chicken w/ Black Beans and Cream Cheese" on parsley rice with salad.
  
• Saturday: Pillsbury's "Ravioli with Vegetables" and salad.
  
• Sunday: Lemony baked salmon with buttery parsley potatoes and salad.
  

Chicken Turkey Bake

Sticking with my menu plan, I made a cheesy turkey casserole for Friday's dinner. Because I had worked two long days in a row and was just plain tired, I modified this recipe a lot to streamline assembly and use up what I had on hand ... the casserole still came out very well and I can imagine making many variations of it in the future.

Cheesy Chicken Turkey Casserole

• 15 oz. jar Classico Four Cheese Alfredo sauce
• 1¼ cups low-fat milk
• 1 cup light Greek yoghurt
• 3 cups uncooked Barilla Piccolini Mini Farfalle pasta
• 12 ounces finely diced cooked turkey meat
• 1 cup leftover cooked sweet corn
• 1½ cups quartered grape tomatoes
• 1 cup shredded Cabot Special Stock cheddar
• Generous shake of McCormick Salt Free Garlic & Herb Seasoning
• Handful of dried parsley

Combine all ingredients; mix well. Place in a 13x9 baking dish, cover, and refrigerate overnight hours.

The next day, preheat oven to 350°F. Bake casserole, covered, for 55 minutes. Remove from oven, stir, and let sit for about 10 minutes. Serves 4-6.

You might think that one cup of cheese isn't enough to label this casserole "cheesy" and you would be wrong. I promise you, a little Cabot Special Stock Cheddar goes a loooong way.

Fowl is Fair: Roasting Birds

We're averaging three roast fowl per month!

Another Roast Chicken
Preheat oven to 350° F.
Rinse and pat dry an 7-lb roasting chicken. Make a paste out of softened butter, parsley, garlic, and pepper. Smear under skin of breast. Rub skin with a little olive oil. Place on roasting rack in roasting pan. Roast, uncovered, for about 2½ hours.

Easy Roast Turkey Breast
Preheat oven to 325° F.
Rinse and pat dry an 8-lb bone-in turkey breast. Smear thoroughly with a little olive oil. Place on roasting rack in roasting pan. Liberally sprinkle with McCormick Lemon Pepper Salt-Free Seasoning. Roast, uncovered, for about 3 hours.

Beans, beans, they're good for your heart ...

Bright and early this morning, I prepped my slow cooker and took it to work. By 11:30 delicious baked beans should be ready for consumption.

Well, I hope they're delicious. I looked at manymany slow cooker (meatless) baked bean recipes these past two weeks and ended up going with Pillsbury's "Slow-Cooked Tex-Mex Baked Beans," because it seemed the easiest and most convenient while not actually using prepared baked beans as an ingredient (what would be the point of, basically, re-flavoring someone else's baked beans?).

In a slow cooker, combine:

2 cans great northern beans, rinsed and drained
2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained
8 oz. can low-sodium tomato sauce
4.5 oz. can chopped green chiles
3/4 cup low-sugar bbq sauce
3/4 cup salsa
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

Cook on Low for about 4 hours.

Even though the recipe serves 14, I still worried there wouldn't be enough beans to go 'round so I dumped in a can of chickpeas plus a bit more salsa and barbecue sauce.

Menu Plan Monday, Week Eight

Much like last week, this week will be quite tiring, so I've tried to create a menu which will require little energy to prepare while still providing ample leftovers to take to work. Also, this will hopefully make it easier to stick to my menu -- last week had a 42% success rate. Mostly, success hinges on leftovers from Sunday's roasted chicken (not on last week's menu) and various pastas. You'll see I'm roasting a turkey breast Thursday morning for sandwiches, casseroles, and soup -- we're definitely on a poultry kick this week.

Also on Thursday, I'm contributing a crock of slow cooker vegetarian baked beans to the library's Volunteer Luncheon -- an event we host every year to thank our volunteers for being totally awesome. Staff usually provides the food and someone had said they would bring a ham, so baked beans seemed like a natural accompaniment. That said, I'm making the beans vegetarian in case any poor, benighted, meat-eschewing folk are hoping for a hot lunch (nothing worse than showing up to a party and finding the only thing you can eat is the fruit tray) .

No, now you can have baked beans and fruit tray!

Saturday, we're celebrating my mother's birthday with a trip to Whiteflower Farm and lunch at The Cheesecake Factory and so there will probably be no real need for supper ... unless, of course, it is Dairy Queen ...

Anyway, Week Eight:

• Monday: "Healthified(ish) Cheddar Chicken Elbows" with salad and shredded pickled beets.
  
• Overtime Tuesday: Mr. Bento packed with leftover "Bulgur Barbecue" (Taste of Home Cookbook, 2008), green salad, and red grapes. Ms. Bento packed with cantaloupe, leftover cheddar chicken casserole, and pickled baby corn.
  
• Overtime Wednesday: Mr. Bento packed with more leftover bulgur, green salad, dates, and blueberries. Ms. Bento packed with red grapes, a hard-boiled egg, more salad, and Cabot Hunter's Sharp cheddar chunks.
• Thursday: Mr. Bento packed with turkey on a kaiser roll (with blue cheese mustard -- nom!), green salad, red grapes, and a granola bar (roast thawed turkey in morning before work).
  
• Friday: "Cheesy Chicken Turkey Casserole" with green beans.
  
• Saturday: My Mother's Birthday Extravaganza
  
• Sunday: Poultry soup (from various frozen carcasses) with biscuits.
  

An Amalgamation of Shepherds

Wednesday's shepherd's pie did not go quite according to recipe and was riddled with convenience items, but was still quite delicious. The English Among Us had seconds and that is always high praise.

Sheepish Shepherd's Pie

1 Tbsp. butter, unsalted
1 small onion, minced
3 cups leftover roast lamb, trimmed of all fat and cubed small
2 cups leftover cooked peas
12 ounce jar Heinz Homestyle Rich Mushroom Gravy
McCormick Salt Free Garlic & Herb Seasoning, as desired
1 package Shedd Spread Country Crock Garlic Mashed Potatoes
1 egg yolk
Paprika, as desired

Preheat oven to 400° F.

Melt butter in skillet. Sauté onion until translucent. Stir in lamb, gravy, peas. Sprinkle with salt-free seasoning. Pour into a 11x9-inch baker.

Beat cold potatoes in stand mixer until softened. Beat in egg yolk. Spread over meat. Sprinkle with paprika. Place dish on a baking sheet and bake, uncovered, for about 30 minutes or until browned and bubbly.

Let rest about 10 minutes. Nom.

Menu Plan Monday, Week Seven

Easter dinner went off without a hitch and everyone seemed to have a nice time, so I suppose I can stop feeling guilty for missing Thanksgiving ...

Of course, I cooked too much food and we will be eating a lot of leftovers for the rest of the week! Happily, while The Husband is not too keen on leftovers, much that has been left can be taken to work -- there isn't a lot of lamb left, for example, but there's tons of salad and pickled beets.

This is going to be tiring week, work-wise, so I've tried for a menu that requires as little energy as possible to implement:

• Monday: Leftover lamb stir-fried with carrots, celery, onion, and tomatoes over rice.


• Tuesday: Mr. Bento packed with green salad (some leftover cold peas stirred in), leftover tomato-rice soup, pickled beets, and a hard cooked egg.


• Wednesday: "Shepherd's Pie Recipe" (from leftover Easter lamb) with pickled beets and green beans.
  


• Thursday: (Tuesday Repeats) Mr. Bento packed with green salad (some leftover cold peas stirred in), leftover tomato-rice soup, pickled beets, and a hard cooked egg.


• Friday: Kashi or Newman's Own frozen pizza.
  


• Saturday: Pasta (jarred sauce doctored with fresh tomatoes, peppers, and onions) and salad.
  


• Sunday: Lemony baked salmon with parsley rice and carrots.
  

Hollow Chocolate Bunny Shortcake

I had decided on shortcake for Easter dessert as I wanted something easy, pretty, and seasonal. I baked a sugar-free pound cake for my mother using a mix from King Arthur Flour and topped it will the best fresh strawberries I could find and home-made unsweetened whipped cream. It was lovely.

And you know what made it even lovelier? Garnishing each plate with chocolate flakes made by running a tiny hollow chocolate bunny through my micropane zester/grater.

(I have to admit, ever since Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse I have been a bit suspicious of these seasonal sweets and grated one up with no small amount of delight)

Lamb for the Panicky

I enjoy eating lamb, but roasting lamb fills me with dread and uncertainty -- every cookbook conflicts with every other cookbook as to how the wee beastie ought to be prepared. No-one seems to agree on what internal temperature counts as "done," either. So, I usually consult a bunch of different cookbooks, panic, and cobble several different recipes together ... and the lamb comes out just fine, wouldn't you know.

Every time I make Panic Lamb, I tell myself I will document my methodology so that next time I will be calm and prepared and not staring at an untied boneless leg roast at ten in the morning desperately calculating time on my fingers and wondering if I have enough garlic.

Hint: There is never enough garlic.

(Don't Panic!) Garlic-Dijon Crusted Roast Leg of Lamb

6± lbs. boneless lamb leg
1 large sprig of rosemary
8 cloves of garlic, peeled
1± Tbsp. olive oil
2± Tbsp. Dijon mustard
¼ bunch of fresh parsley

Remove netting from boned lamb. Rinse lamb under cold running water and pat dry. Let rest while oven preheats and crust is made.

Preheat oven to 450°F.

In a food processor, purée parsley, rosemary, garlic, olive oil, and Dijon mustard.

Stuff about ¼ cup of purée into any available nooks and crannies. Retie leg with kitchen twine every couple inches. Put leg on rack in roasting pan, fatty side up. Smear leg with purée.

Place leg in 450°F for 20 minutes. Reduced temperature to 300°F and roast 1½ hour more (internal temperature is about 145°F ). Remove leg to carving board and let rest, loosely tented with foil, for 20 minutes.

Remove twine, carve, and eat.

The First Easter

Easter Dinner, 2009

~ Roasted Lamb ~

~ Mom's Au Gratin Potatoes ~

~ Pickled Beets ~

~ Steamed Peas ~

~ Green Salad ~

~ Colored Eggs ~

~ Pickle Tray ~

~ Warm Rolls and Butter ~

~*~

~ Sugar-Free Pound Cake with Whipped Cream, Strawberries, and Lindt Bunny Shavings ~

Bake Your Bacon

I finally tried making bacon in the oven and, boy, I wish I'd tried this method sooner. My mother's been raving about this method for years, but I'd never really thought about trying it until last week when I realized it was BLT Month ...

Mom's Oven Bacon

Preheat oven to 400°
Place strips of bacon on a shallow baking sheet so that their edges are not touching. Bake in oven for five minutes. Rotate pan. Bake another five minutes. Remove bacon from oven and drain on paper towels.

I have used this method to bake both two and twelve slices and it yielded flat, uniformly crispy melt-in-my-mouth bacon each time. Yum!

Easy Roasted Chicken & Potatoes

Sunday, I roasted one of the BOGO chickens, because roasting chicken is easy, makes the house smell delicious, and will eventually lead to homemade chicken soup.

When I started prepping the chicken, I had no particular recipe in mind, but knew I wanted to use up some fossilized lemons and mandarins. While the fruits were still quite juicy, their rinds had gone hard and leathery ...

Easy Garlic Lemon Roasted Chicken & Potatoes
1 5 lb chicken, rinsed and dried
1 Tbsp butter, softened
Fresh ground pepper
6 cloves of garlic, minced
Chopped parsley
2 lemons & 1 tiny orange (or whatever you have on hand), halved
5 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
Salt-free lemon pepper seasoning
6 garlic cloves

Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix butter, parsley, garlic, and pepper together. Place chicken on rack in roasting pan. Gently spread butter under the skin of the breast, spreading as far down and back as you can go. Squeeze lemons and orange over chicken. Stuff chicken cavity with as many squeezed halves as will easily fit. Roast for about 2 hours in the middle of the oven, uncovered.

At the end of the first hour, toss chopped potatoes and garlic with a generous amount of lemon pepper. Add potatoes to bottom of roasting pan and continue roasting for 1 more hour or until chicken is cooked through.

Remove chicken from pan (I just pull out the whole rack and let it rest on a carving board). Tent with foil. Toss potatoes and let roast for another twenty minutes.

Carve chicken, dish out potatoes, nom.

Healthified(ish) Cheddar Chicken Elbows

Monday's supper can, at best, be called a close cousin of "Cheddar Chicken Spirals" from Taste of Home's The Busy Family Cookbook (Reiman Media, 2007) for, in using what was on hand, my ingredient list deviated from the official one pretty broadly. For example, I substituted a stir-fry blend for the mixed vegetables and elbow noodles for the rotini. I also healthified the recipe by halving the amount of cheese and using lighter dairy.

How did it taste? Pretty darn yummy! Much more so than I thought when I saw that the sauce was made of mayonnaise -- a mayonnaise-based sauce in something other than salad just seemed a bit weird. Happily, while the finished dish had a rich creamy taste, the mayonnaise doesn't stand out from the rest of the ingredients and you would never know it was in there.

Cheddar Chicken Elbows

8 oz (half box) Barilla elbows
8 oz (half bag) Birds Eye Sugar Snap Stir-Fry blend, thawed
1½ cups bits of leftover roasted chicken
1± cup (shredded) Cabot Hunter's Sharp Cheddar
½ cup light mayonnaise
1/3 cup 1% milk
1 teaspoon McCormick Salt Free Garlic & Herb Seasoning

Make the pasta as directed. Meanwhile, whisk mayonnaise, milk, and salt-free seasoning together. Mix in most of the shredded cheddar, drained stir-fry mix, and chicken. When pasta is ready, drain and stir into mayonnaise-chicken mixture. Pour into a greased 8x8-inch square baker, top with the remaining cheese, cover and microwave for about five minutes. Let rest for about five minutes. Eat.

Menu Plan Monday, Week Six

Most of my time/energy this week will be spent on preparing for Easter Dinner as, having missed hosting Thanksgiving by contracting some horrible ickiness, Easter had better go off without a hitch or I will be shamed forever. Think I'm joking? Come to my house tomorrow night when I'm standing on the kitchen counter sponging the tops of the cabinet doors. No-one who is coming for dinner is tall enough to see if the doors are dusty or not, but they must still be cleaned. Oh, yes.

Understandably, this week's menu is all about fast, convenient cookery:

• Monday: "Cheddar Chicken Spirals" from Taste of Home's The Busy Family Cookbook (Reiman Media, 2007). Uses leftover roast chicken and a bunch of kitchen staples.


• Tuesday: Mr. Bento packed with Polan Green Sorrel Borsch, salad, and a homemade strawberry-pineapple gelatin cup.


• Wednesday: "Creole Tuna" from Taste of Home's The Busy Family Cookbook (Reiman Media, 2007) with rice and green beans. Like Monday's supper, this will use a bunch of kitchen staples.
  


• Thursday: Mr. Bento packed with leftover tuna-rice, salad, and a homemade strawberry-pineapple gelatin cup.


• Friday: A late lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, so probably random snackage for supper ...
  


• Saturday: Kashi or Newman's Own frozen pizza and salad.


• Easter Sunday: "Roast Leg of Lamb" with "Mint Sauce" (The Best Recipe: Steaks, Chops, Roasts & Ribs), "Fast Buttery Peas" (The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook), scalloped or au gratin potatoes (Mom brings), tossed salad, pickled beets, dyed eggs, crusty rolls with butter, and a pickle plate. Maybe sugar-free pound cake with strawberries and cream for dessert?
  

Tastes Like Spaghetti Hoops

I made pasta for supper on Friday and it was pretty darn fantastic. The Husband kept saying that it tasted like Heinz Spaghetti Hoops. Well, not the way they really taste but the way he remembers them tasting when he was child -- all super tomato-y tangy goodness.

Amusing as such a comparison is, I wonder if he would like Spaghetti Hoops so much if were he to eat them today? My experience with childhood food memories is that they create false expectations -- the food never tastes as good now that one is an adult. On the other hand, many foods I detested as a child are now delicious in mine eyes ... maybe, if I still loved Twinkies I would still hate Brussels sprouts? Oh noes!

Anyway, I didn't set out to recreate Spaghetti Hoops when I made Friday's supper -- I just wanted something fast which would use up some odds and ends lingering in the fridge:

Pasta à la Spaghetti Hoops

25 oz. jar Prego Heart Smart Mushroom Italian Sauce
1 pint wrinkly grape tomatoes, halved
1 small onion, minced
1 pkg. al fresco Fully-Cooked Roasted Garlic with Onion Chicken Sausage, sliced into rounds
1/2 box Ronzoni Smart Taste Rotini

Toss sausage slices, tomatoes, and onions into a hot sauté pan. Put pasta water on to boil. Cook sausages, stirring to prevent sticking, until browned on both sides and onions are golden. Pour in sauce and cook, covered, at low until pasta is ready. Make pasta according to instructions on box. When pasta is ready, drain well and stir into sauce. Reduced burner to its lowest setting (warm is good, if you have it) and let sit until sauce is pretty well absorbed -- about ten to fifteen minutes. Serve with salad (which you can make while the pasta is sitting).

Coupon Crazed

Last month, I was totally chuffed to have spent 112.73 (after a savings of 46.61) on a whole lot of groceries. That, I thought, was an exceptional price to pay for all the deliciousness I brought home in my lovely FOL totes ....

Today, I did even better! I spent 84.30 at Shaw's. I saved, through a combination of sale prices and careful coupon use, 83.32. The freezer, fridge, and cupboards overflow with bounty and I am feeling ever so smug.

I owe quite a lot of today's success to sites like Wicked Cool Deals and Old-Fashioned New England Saving which break down store circulars for me and match weekly sales against coupons available on the Internet or in newspapers. For example, this week I purchased:

• Birds Eye Steamfresh Vegetables 10/10 (+ two 1/3 newspaper coupons)
• Del Monte Whole Gold Pineapple 1.99 (+ 75¢ Del Monte Internet coupon)
• Dole Canned Pineapple & Mandarin Oranges 10/10 (+ three 1/3 newspaper coupons)
• Kraft Salad Dressings 2/3 (+ two 1.50/1 newspaper coupons)
• Land O'Lakes Butter 1.88 (+ 1/2 Land O'Lakes newspaper coupon)
• Newman’s Own Thin Crust Pizza 2/11 (+ two 1/1 Newman’s Internet coupons)
• Vanity Fair Napkins 2/5 (+ 1/2 newspaper coupons)

I tend not to use many Internet coupons because sites like coupons.com require me to download software incompatible with my computer (Fedora 10 with Firefox 3.0.8). Silly buggers.

Last week, Stop & Shop sent me a bunch of coupons for 5% off my total purchase for each week in April as well as one for $3 off my next shopping order. This week's Stop & Shop circular also had four double-dollar coupons. So, before I started shopping, I made a quick stop at the Courtesy Desk to make sure Shaw's would accept other competitor's coupons. I was told I would have no problem using Stop & Shop's coupons -- and I didn't. It was awesome, I kid you not, to watch my total steadily tick down as the cashier deducted coupons.

My savings would have been greater, of course, if I hadn't blown 15.49 on Easter sweets. But who can say no to those adorable five-packs of Lindt mini bunnies? They were on sale (2/6) so I guess I can feel a little thrifty as I hide chocolate around the house Easter morning.

Easy Work Night Supper: Golden Pork Chops

Made "Golden Pork Chops" from Taste of Home's The Busy Family Cookbook (Reiman Media, 2007) for supper with dilly carrots and shredded pickled beets and it was pretty darn good!

Used pork chops out of the freezer, that can of creamed corn I couldn't remember the reason for buying, and cornbread stuffing mix leftover from Thanksgiving. Yes, indeed, Thanksgiving. That's how often I make stuffing!

This was an easy dish to throw together and thus made an excellent work night supper. Yes, it did have to bake for forty minutes, but that just gave me plenty of time to reconstruct the kitchen, drink a little cider, and read a few more chapters from Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark.

To make these chops, you first mix creamed corn, stuffing mix, paprika, minced onion and celery together. Dump the corn-stuffing mix into a greased bake and pat flat (don't smoosh). Top with thickly cut boneless pork chops. Brush the chops with a mixture of brown sugar and spicy mustard. Bake uncovered for about forty minutes. Nom.

Now, I did goof up a bit with the mustard-sugar mix. My brown sugar was rock hard so I chiseled a chunk off and microwaved it in a bowl covered with a damp paper towel until the sugar was softened. Or that was the idea, anyway. My damp towel was too wet and I ended up with brown sugar soup. I mixed the spicy mustard in, anyway, and basted the pork with it. Happily, my mistake worked out just fine -- the chops had a delicious honey-mustard type tang to them.

I imagine I could just has easily have substituted maple syrup for the brown sugar (or just used honey mustard from the start).

We both quite liked this dish -- the pork was deliciously tender and tangy and the stuffing was rather nice, too (and I am not big on stuffing). I will be making this recipe again and recommend you try it, too!

Four Ingredients: Slow Cooker Roast

"My Favorite Roast" from March/April 2009 Cooking With Paula Deen is a very basic recipe -- roast, onion soup packet, (low-fat low-sodium) cream of mushroom, and (low-sodium) stewed tomatoes -- but also a pretty yummy one. The roast was so tender that it fell apart when prodded with a serving spoon and the gravy, when thickened, had a nice tomato-y flavor.

(I thickened the gravy by removing the roast to a warm oven, decanting the juices into a pot, making a corn starch slurry, and whisking that slurry into the pot -- I don't make gravy very often, but this method yielded good results).

My only complaint with this recipe, really, is that it doesn't seem exceptional enough to be a Paula Deen original! Indeed, you can find many recipes like it on the Internets. But, will they taste as good? Who knows? Try one and tell me!

Gratuitous Kitty Shot

(Little Dude has decided that my sewing table is the best place to take a snooze).