Sorry for the brief hiatus.  Emma and I went to Sacramento for a couple of days to visit my parents and I’ve been fighting a cold the last few days.  I’m feeling better, but with the traveling and the sickness, there hasn’t been anything exciting happening in my kitchen, aside from the ants.  Those guys just won’t quit!  A tip that my Nana told me about works better on ants than anything else I’ve tried.  It sounds crazy, but it works.  Stick a slice of cucumber in any place you see the ants coming in from.  It really does work.  I have cucumbers all along where the ants have been coming in and my kitchen is now ant-free.  I usually leave the cucumbers there until they shrivel up, just to be safe.

Anyway, for dinner last night, I managed to whip up My Favorite Pasta Dish (isn’t that name so clever?!).  It was delish, as usual.

This time, I tossed in a some toasted pine nuts, which gave it some nice crunch and nutty flavor.

Since I mentioned our trip to Sacramento, I want to give my parents (who, sadly are NOT loyal readers) kudos for eating completely vegan meals the two nights we were there.  See, guys, it won’t kill you!  In fact, they even liked both of the meals that I made for them.  My dad claims that veganism is “too extreme,” but that becoming vegetarian is something he can handle.  Well, I don’t believe for a second that he’ll even attempt going vegetarian, but I hope he’ll at least consider it.  Think about all those medications that you could avoid taking just by changing your diet…

One of our meals was this miso/udon soup.  Yep, Emma and I just can’t get enough of this stuff.  I made it exactly the same way as before, except I used red miso instead of white.  I have to say that the red has more flavor, despite being really funky looking.