I thought I was going to cook today

Reading the NYT's Dining section this morning got my all excited to do some cooking. Mark Bittman's column about savory, whole-grainy breakfast dishes motivated me to crack open the can of butternut squash I've had for a few days. I mixed some into my oatmeal, along with maple syrup, ground cinnamon and a sprinkling of that crunchy, Biblically inspired cereal I've mentioned before. The results, I can assure you, were scrumptious.

One of the recipes he mentioned is polenta pizza, which also appears in How to Cook Everything. I read the recipe there a few weeks ago around the same time that I toyed with the idea of making meatballs, which won out. Seeing it again in this morning's paper reminded me of my urge to give it a go, and with not much else planned for the day, I thought I might make it for tonight's dinner. I also spotted a few other recipes that, in their published form, seem like I'd like them with a few tweaks, like Melissa Clark's cauliflower with cheese AND chutney (yum to either one, but together? yikes) and Pichet Ong's chocolate-oatmeal cupcakes with maple-bacon buttercream, which clearly breaks The Pork Rule (I hate all pork products) and also the cake rule (I think cake is gross) but which appeals to my dual loves of oats and chocolate. I wonder if this could be adapted to a brownie form. I now recall that I have a brownie recipe, I think by Liz Applegate, that includes oats, but they're mixed into the batter a la The Sneaky Chef, whereas I'd like something that showcases the oats more boldly, something perhaps along the lines of a crumble. There was also a mention of chocolate mocha cookies in the Food Stuff section. Mmm.

All of this led me to the conclusion that I would be cooking tonight, and possibly baking tomorrow. Were it not for my gelato date with a friend tonight, I'd be all over some baking, but I wouldn't want any batter/dough sampling in the afternoon to kill my appetite for a cold confection post-dinner. But before I made it to the grocery store, Gelato Friend invited me over for dinner, too. So polenta pizza will have to wait another day ... but probably not more, because I'm really excited to take a crack at it.