Attempting Italian: Minestrone

Last night I played the Single Lady while Jonno was away doing boring work stuff in Hamilton.  I think it was the first night I had spent truly alone in a few years, and it was, hmm, let's call it 'semi-glorious'.  Let me break it down:

• Not so glorious: stayed at work late, then went to the gym and had to wait 20 minutes for my bus home.
• Glorious: got to watch whatever the hell I wanted!!  Which was Bones, of course, followed by some Rookie Blue and then FlightTV purely because Richie McCaw was in it.
• Not so glorious: attempted to make minestrone from Cook's Illustrated, which I used to consider a paragon of foodie delights.  Used to!  Took bloody ages to cook pancetta, saute vegetables, get 10 cups of stock + water boiling, then cook it all together for 45ish minutes.  Then it was too hot!  I should sue.  Also, the recipe called for literally half of my poor basil plant, looked it's all shivering and almost naked in this photo!

  

  This minestone will rue the day it was born!

• Glorious: I finally got a huge chunk of my current sewing project knocked out.  It's going to be a baby changing mat for a very tiny soon-to-be human.  And then once she outgrows it, maybe a chew toy.

My sewing machine is my third best friend.

• Not so glorious: the minestrone that took foreeeeeeever was blah.  Like really blah.  The thing I could taste the most was the cabbage, and there was pancetta in that bad boy.  Pancetta!!  If you can't taste the pancetta, what's the friggin point, hey?
• Addendum to the point above: I want to know why this recipe failed, it really taste like hot tomatoey (but not tomatoey enough!) cabbage soup.  It called for 8 cups of water, 2 cups of chicken stock, and 1 1/2 cups of V8 tomato juice, along with the aforementioned pancetta, some veggies of the not-so-cheap variety (courgettes/zucchini?  Hello money down the drain!), and a rind of parmesian cheese.  Isn't minestrone supposed to be a hearty, rich, tomatoey vegetable almost-stew of a soup??????  Next time, I'm making Ree's version!  She hasn't lead me wrong yet!
• Glorious: I got the cats all to myself, and the bed, and I stayed up as late as I wanted.  One a.m., what was I thinking? 

Gratuitous cat photo!  Spice sleeps off a hard day of sleeping.

Husband comes back tonight, wonder if he'll mind sleeping on the couch from now on?  :)