In Case of Emergency, Break Glass and Crack a Few Eggs
Comfort Dinner at its Finest
I frantically attempted to wrap up my Christmas shopping today. I wanted to be able to move on to other holiday activities like baking cookies (!) and writing Christmas cards. But because of an impending major snowstorm, so much earlier in the season than normal, the stores and the roads were completely jammed. Everyone else had the same plan as I did to finish everything today before it would be impossible to get to the stores tomorrow, and difficult over the next week with projected snow mounds in the parking lots. Later in the day I went back out again in a vain attempt to find snow boots for Louisa. I was a little late to that party.
By the time we were done with our fruitless search for boots it was already 7:00 and I mentioned that dinner would be very late. Luckily my resourceful daughters suggested a brilliant fallback dinner, eggs and toast. What a perfect idea for a quick, satisfying meal on a cold night for a weary mom. I needed to add something to the eggs to make them feel more like dinner, so I picked up some sopressata to chop and toss into the fry pan. I would have used diced potatoes to make my favorite childhood egg meal, potatoes and eggs, but I didn’t have the patience to wait for the potatoes to cook. Nobody complained about dinner as we hungrily woofed it down. It was calming, comforting, and the perfect emergency dinner solution.
What’s you favorite emergency dinner?
Releasing the Jewels of the Pomegranate
Released without a big mess.
I’ve always loved pomegranates, and purchase them whenever they show up in the market. However, they often sit around longer than they should waiting for the seeds to be released, because I haven’t got the time or patience to deal with the mess of breaking them loose. It usually means stained fingers, juice all over the cutting board, and possible staining of my clothing. And I’m really not that messy a cook.
So, Hallelujah!, fellow About.com Guide to American Food, John Mitzewich has put together a video that shows the quickest, neatest way to get those jewels out of the pomegranate. I just followed his instructions and it took less than half the time it normally takes me, and there wasn’t a stained finger or piece of clothing in sight.
Now if only he can put together a video that shows how to get the stains off the ceiling from the last time we had pomegranate seeds in this house, and the girls decided it would be fun to squirt the seeds into their mouths.
You should have seen the cabinets, counters, and backsplash.
From the bloodbath I discovered in the kitchen, it looked like few seeds actually made it into their intended destination.
Photo of the Week – 12/16/09 – Christmas Present
My delightful, first Christmas present of 2009 – an official bento box with shape cutters and sauce bottles.