At the end of the summer I lost my cooking mojo in a big way. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve got it all the way back.

I am not sure exactly what happened! There were a few recipes that sort of missed the mark, and then the weather got very hot and made cooking an unpleasant slog, even if we were just using the stovetop or the grill. We went away for a weekend recently and that helped a little, just not having to cook for a few days. But even then I was still not really feeling it.

Nevertheless, we managed to avoid resorting to carrying out every night, though! There have been some nights that were more thrown together than others but I don’t mind that in a pinch.

Lately, we’ve been watching Jamie Oliver’s Quick & Easy Food series on Hulu and making some of those recipes (the meatball sandwiches, which we didn’t have as sandwiches, and the chicken pot pie; also the chickpea chard pork) with good results. I’ve also made the green spaghetti, and while it was good I’m not sure I’d bother again.

I think it’s fine to let things go a little at the end of summer. Everyone’s more or less ready for a break in whatever it is they’re doing, whether that be entertaining bored children all day or trying to get excited about cooking dinner every. Single. Night. (Not that I’m counting…ahem.)

One of my kitchen themes this summer was popsicles, which were mostly very successful. I made butterscotch pudding pops, yogurt and berry swirl pops, two batches of orange creamsicles, key lime pie pops, and pink lemonade popsicles. My favorite was the key lime, with the orange creamsicles a close second. This will be a shock to anyone who knows me, but I did not much care for the butterscotch ones. I mean…I finished them, let’s don’t be foolish. But they left a sort of…weird aftertaste or afterfeel, more accurately. I don’t think I’d make them again!

Anyway, as the hot weather winds down (it cooled off for a while, but now is very hot again) we’re having a lot of carryout sushi and other things that don’t need to be cooked or even heated.