The last 24 hours (at least all the waking ones) have been a whirlwind of engaging, interesting, enlivening social activities as well as lots of terrific food (the highlight was an Avocade Monte Cristo sandwich with homemade tomato jam).  I’ve had a wonderful time celebrating a birthday, attending a baby shower and hanging with some of my favorite bloggers.

But upon arriving home tonight after the meetup, I was done.  I was totally and completely ready to stop talking to people for a while, solve a really hard Sudoku puzzle and have an easy, unadorned dinner by myself.  Luckily, there was a sweet potato sitting on my kitchen counter that was waiting for just such an occasion.  I repeatedly punctured the sweet potato with the tines of a sharp fork and popped it into the toaster oven (at 400 degrees) on a foil covered baking pan.

Baked sweet potato (although back in the day we called them yams) with a heavy shake of garlic powder and a big scoop of cottage cheese (we put cottage cheese on everything in my family) was one of the classic rainy day dinners from my childhood.  I realize that it sounds slightly wrong, but then I’ve never told you about the milky omelet I used to make for myself that I ate with fake maple syrup.  Talk about wrong.

These days I skip the garlic powder and go for cinnamon and salt instead.  I bake the sweet potato until it yields willingly (about 45 minutes) to the tip of a knife (there should be no resistance or crunchiness left) and then mash it well with the seasonings.  Tonight I ate it with a side of plain greek yogart (which may be one of my favorite foods on earth) because I didn’t have any cottage cheese and wanted some protein.  I also dug out some heavily frosted spinach from the freezer, needing something green.

It was the kind of meal that I never would have made had I been responsible for feeding another person.  It was simple, reminded me of childhood and left me knowing that I was giving myself the exact evening I needed to have.