Master Chef?

Here's something you don't see too often- me cooking! (and wearing my glasses).

I decided that since I have so much free time here, I'm going to attempt to cook one meal a week.  I was flipping through pinterest (you can follow me here) and saw some interesting recipes and thought, I can try that.  For my first attempt I thought I'd make something easy that didn't require spending a lot of money on ingredients.  I saw this penne with asparagus and balsamic butter and decided it was the one!  All I needed to buy was the asparagus, shredded parm and balsamic vinegar.  I walked over to Coles for some sunshine and picked up my ingredients for under ten dollars.  (I also needed a little bit of brown sugar, so swiped some from a coffee shop!  Thrifty thinking.)  I started cooking about ten minutes before Joel got home, and he was happy to have such a nice surprise to come home to after a tough day at work.  All in all my cooking turned out pretty good!  Joel loved it and said he'd eat this dish again.  (He's a tough critic.  Last time I cooked for him he said never to do it again).  I overcooked the asparagus a little and had some trouble reducing the vinegar, but I was pretty proud of myself for making something edible that required more then just boiling plain pasta.  I think I'm hooked!  If anyone has some tasty and easy recipes for me to try, feel free to share!

Joel and I have a nice, long five day weekend.  Monday is a holiday here, the Queens's Birthday.  I took off Saturday and Joel took off today because we were planning on going away for a weekend.  Turns out all the prices go way up for the long weekend, so we decided to save money and just do some day trips instead.  He went golfing this morning and when he's home we're going to go to the Q1 observation deck (finally!) for drinks.  I have cleaning to do, but am feeling lazy so I think I might go back to bed.  That's what days off are for, right?