#1,549 Cook Night.

Back in August, right before Lucy was born, Mallorie and I spent one night making big batches of our favorite meals for her freezer so they would be all set when they came home from the hospital. Tonight she and I did the same thing for our freezer, getting ready for my surgery in a couple weeks. My favorite soup is Annalee’s ranch stew so I made a big crock pot of that to bag up, while Mallorie made my favorite thing she cooks—her aunt Betty’s jambalaya. She’s been feeding us their family recipe since we lived together in college and it gets better every time.

You dump it all together in a mixing bowl before it goes into pans in the oven for an hour. The things in this bowl: magic.

While everything was simmering we shared a wimpy pot of Pasta Roni and talked about their plans for their trip to Europe coming up. I happened to have what we needed to make our favorite:

Might as well. A regular ole girls’ night in.

It’s very good to have a friend who knows where everything in your kitchen is, who knows your ice maker is wonky and dumps out too much on the first glass, who knows how to turn on your oven because she has the same one. I was telling mama the other day that since we didn’t have sisters, I think we filled that void we didn’t even know was there. Tonight I’m really really thankful for that.