Chocolate saves the day!

Our lunchtime today had all the makings of a disaster:

1) Friday is the end of the week in our house as far as groceries go, and our fridge was looking rather barren.  

2) LW's food preferences have been growing fewer and more unachievable by the day, and all that I could seem to come up with was an English muffin with cashew butter, a rather overripe plum that she herself had dug out of the fruit basket (and thus that I felt relatively certain she might actually eat), and a pile of shredded mozzarella cheese (Jim and I had somehow managed to finish in four days all the string cheese that I bought "just for her").

3)  The plum went flying after three bites.

4)  The English muffin never even touched her mouth.

5)  If you ever have the brilliant idea to substitute shredded cheese for bite size, don't bother.  After about 3 seconds of patting myself on the back for the neat sensory experience I'd given her, I started kicking myself instead as handfuls of the stuff started flying.  Note to self: shredded cheese isn't particularly easy to get out of a kitchen rug.

Keep in mind that during this saga, I had yet to have any food myself.  We had leftover ziti from the night before, but I'd also made a rather disappointing pumpkin soup yesterday, and had dutifully packed away the leftovers despite having not enjoyed it all that much the first time.  When I saw the recipe at Faith and Family, I thought I'd struck gold; this time of year finds me practically turning orange from all the sweet potato, squash, and pumpkin that I eat, and I'd been looking for a recipe for a sweet pumpkin soup since having some at a restaurant last year.  Last week I'd tried to replicate it using pumpkin pie filling, but the result was inedible; this recipe was much better, but still just seemed to be missing something.  Perhaps if I'd made it with something richer than 1% milk it would have been really good, but as it was, it was just sort of "bleh".

Still, being food, and food I'd specifically bought ingredients for, I didn't feel like I could throw it away, unexcited as I was to eat it again for lunch.  Suddenly, in a dash of inspiration, I threw a handful of chocolate chips in before I heated it up.  The result?  Wow!  Yum!  So good that I'll likely make it again.

Even LW voted it tasty, no small feat since she started crying after the taste she had yesterday.

Something tells me that this won't be the last time I find myself singing the praises of chocolate chips...