My cooking energy was almost non-existent today — this week has wiped me out! — so I was happy to let mom be the boss. She spent the afternoon and early evening going through the turkey left from our Hannukah party to divide it into soupable pieces, cat pieces, and fat. Here she is with her fan club looking on:

I chopped celery (ewwwww), carrots, and onions for the soup:

The fridge looks so empty now because most of its contents went into the soup, yayyyy! Here’s the huge soup pot, stuffed to the gills:

And finally, our 10 pm dinner! I only had a little mug of soup because I had eaten my way through a hefty percentage of the carrots, cauliflower, and cabbage as I chopped. That’s a matzoh ball in front — mom found a few in the freezer and threw them in, mmmmmmmm:

Mom also found some peach pie in the freezer that she made over the summer. While that was heating in the oven, I set us up with a dessert appetizer: the teeeeeeeeny piece of rice pudding I rescued as we left the party last night. My bite:

You can’t tell from the picture, but the rice pudding is on a little tea bag-sized saucer and accompanied by my baby spoon. For perspective, here it is next to my tea (decaf Earl Grey and a splash of light eggnog):

And finally, this delicious peach pie! Mom can’t remember what she put in it (as usual), but it tasted perfect and not at all as if it had been in the freezer for the past six months:

I’ll be heading back to Brooklyn tomorrow morning armed with loads of food (I may not even have to grocery shop this week!) and a mom-made lunch for the bus. Booooo, end of vacation :-(.