pasta's hungry work

Sometimes I think Mister is just a little bit looney.  Tonight was absolutely one of those nights.  I made Pasta Con Broccoli from Appetite for Reduction because I knew it would make Mister happy (and also because I had planned to make it last night, but we'll get to that in a moment).

After scarfing down two bowls full of linguini and plenty of broccoli (as well as plenty of garlic - I have the world's stinkiest breath right now, thanks to that and the nasty little chunks of diced red onion that were hiding in the lentils of my salad this afternoon), Mister said he was hungry.  I thought, "Surely, I misheard!" So I asked him if he said he was still hungry.  To my surprise, he responded by nodding vehemently and then sticking out his lower lip in a pout.

My husband is the only human being on the planet who can eat two bowls of linguini and be hungry afterwards.  If I'm wrong, please tell me.

So, about 15 minutes after dinner, Mister put on shoes and his coat and went out to find a sandwich.  Seriously.  He came back a little while later, happily stuffed with a Wawa sammich and a stale donut.

Sometimes, I just don't get him.

Anyway, on my way home from work last night, I stopped at Superfresh because I didn't realize how little bouillon I had until I used it all up making the Vegetable Lentil Stew the other night.  I was hoping to pick up a can or quart of veggie broth even though Superfresh doesn't believe in it but something new caught my eye instead:

Mister thinks that image is completely unappetizing, but I think it's kind of cool that they have concentrated liquid broth base in little individual squeeze-packs.  That's how it ended up in my home.

Each of the little squeeze-packs, when combined with water, make one cup of broth, which is actually kind of perfect, considering the number of times I've had to cut a bouillon cube in half because I only needed to make one cup of broth.  Nevertheless, these will not be a standard issue in our home for two reasons: first, though I'll admit I haven't checked the nutritional info on Rapunzel bouillon in a while, it seems a little excessive for each packet to provide 770mg sodium.  That is a solid third of the RDA and it only makes 1 cup.  God forbid I use two packets...  The second reason is purely economical and ecological - they are way more expensive than premade broth or Rapunzel bouillon cubes and result in a lot more material waste.

I guess it smelled pretty good, though, as part of the Broccoli Con Pasta, because Angst bugged Mister for a sniff/taste the moment we sat down to eat.

Could you resist those imploring eyes?  That sad, hungry little face??

Yeah, neither could Mister.

Fortunately, once it was down at eye-level, Angst remembered he doesn't like pasta and resorted to staring me down to see if I had something different to eat.  I gave him a small piece of pasta and after he licked it, he left it on the floor for me to pick up after dinner.  What a sweetheart.

If I could go back a night, though, even after I made a special trip to Superfresh specifically to get the broth so I could make Pasta Con Broccoli, upon returning home, I stood in my kitchen, my apron half tied, thinking.  Realizing that I absolutely could not muster the desire to make and eat that dinner, primarily because I'd gotten a completely different cuisine stuck on my tastebuds, I called out to Mister, "Hey, do you want to go to Cedar's for dinner?"

Yes, he did.