Wow, I have gotten really bad at blogging.

I had such high hopes for this whole quarantine thing. I could write blog posts! I could work on some ambitious knitting projects! I could make another quilt! So many things to do!

Instead, I am chopping vegetables.

I am one of the people who is lucky enough to be able to work from home, and I am still earning the same salary that I was when I was working from work. The truly lucky people are the ones who are only “working” in scare quotes from home as part of a don’t ask, don’t tell sort of arrangement in which they are being paid to watch Netflix. I know a few of these people, and they are trying to get a book deal based on their very Instagrammable quarantine lives.

But I am working from home the same number of hours per week as I used to work from work. Sure, it is more convenient because I do not need to drive to Rancho Bernardo every day. Not driving to Rancho Bernardo also makes it more reasonable for me to do server maintenance on a Sunday because I’m fine with logging in for half an hour to push some buttons, but driving 20 miles (each way) to push buttons is much less appealing.

Do you know what I am doing with the hour a day that I save by not having to commute? I am chopping vegetables. I am cooking. And this in not some sort of Instagrammable cooking. This is the life that I have been forced into now that I no longer have access to unlimited office snacks and the taco shop on the corner. Sure, sure the taco shop does take-out and even has a drive-thru, but this taco shop used to have a “B” rating from the health department, and this is not the right time to be going to restaurants like that.

It has been years since I’ve cooked. Sure, I have gotten pretty good at ricemaker + Instant Pot, but mostly it has been snacks and restaurants.

I’ve been doing my grocery shopping via online delivery, and I have no idea how much of anything to order. Is the produce measured in pounds? Or by each? It turns out that $2 worth of bananas is A LOT of bananas. I bought some arbitrary number of turnips, and that ended up being a lot of turnips. In honor of the fact that I had so many turnips and that the grocery delivery service decided to substitute a block of cheddar cheese for the tofu that was not in stock, today I conjured the side dish of “cheese turnips.”

You didn’t come here for the recipe for cheese turnips, I hope. Because if that were the case you might complain angrily that the recipe is at the end of the blog post and you had to scroll down to see it.

Cheese Turnips Peel some turnips and cut them into chunks. Boil the chunks until they start to turn sort of translucent and are getting soft. Drain. Mash up the turnip chunks and add some butter and A LOT of shredded cheddar cheese. Stir until evenly blended. Regret that you didn’t think to saute some garlic to make garlicky cheese turnips.