smushed chickpea love

I have a feeling that February is not going to be a terribly restful month.  Lucky me, it's the shortest month of the year, so even though I anticipate a lot of unsettledness and crowding, at least I can face it armed with the knowledge that it will end.

Since I didn't get too much accomplished yesterday, packing-wise, I pretty much devoted all of today (except for the time spent at Salon Sugar, having my grays camouflaged and cut) to packing.  I got all my music books packed, as well as one small bookshelf.  The big bookshelf may have to be a Me&Mister collaboration, since at least half those books are his and I don't want to just go around deciding which of his books to keep and which to donate...

The main problem I'm running into is the growing City of Boxes.  Fortunately, they can be stacked on top of one another, but eventually they will give me anxiety.  Miraculously, all of the things that are now in boxes that are beginning to take over my living room and bedroom actually had A Place, and since I've displaced them, they're just clutter again.  I'm cutting this week as a loss, in terms of taking things to the thrift store, but I think I'll spend most of next weekend filtering out what is definitely not following us down the street and moving it to the thrift store.  At least that way, we'll have more room for boxes!

Although I usually make a relatively time-consuming dinner on Sundays, 'cause I can, I made something short and sweet tonight instead. 

Lemony Garlic Chickpea Patties from Vegan on the Cheap, served with roasted red potatoes I tossed with olive oil and Mediterranean Seasoning from my trip out west.  To make the patties, I got to use two happy kitchen toys tools: my food processor and my new burger press.  It is so fun to smush those little round balls of almost-burger! 

The "dough" seemed like it was going to be too dry to hold everything together (since the only liquid was 3 Tbsp lemon juice), so I added a bit more lemon juice.  All told, I used the juice of two Meyer lemons and it definitely dominated from the first bite, but not in a bad way, just in a "Oh, hey, there's the lemon" kind of way.

This pan is a secondary vision of Mister's Heaven: A roasting pan full of potatoes, generously decorated with herbs, spices, and salt.  I gave in and bought one of those adorable bags of tiny red potatoes, which lengthened the scrubbing process but decreased the chopping time.  They came out really well - crispy outside, squishy inside, and well-seasoned.

After dinner, I just couldn't get back into the groove, so I think we're finished packing for the evening.  Angst is trying to help - he already has one of his pillows (and himself) in a box.