Winging It – Part 2
It’s amazing how much neglected chicken can be found when you go freezer diving in my kitchen. And right next to the buried chicken, you’ll find buried bagels. And maybe some frozen chile peppers. This all leads to my second night of winging it, because of Louisa, my very sick girl who has been home since Wednesday with a high fever. It’s funny how these things just pop out of nowhere. One day you’re planning on going grocery shopping and the next day, you’re stuck home with a sick child freezer diving for dinner, a second night in a row.
So what to make for a sick child? Calling all Italian and Jewish mothers – Chicken Soup! What else?
I had a chicken breast, carrots, celery, onion, little pasta shells, and even frozen spinach. It was just what the doctor ordered – for the rest of us! Louisa wasn’t very hungry and didn’t have it until lunch the next day.
Winging It, Part 1
Since Tuesday, our dinners have not been following the usual plan. Namely, I haven’t planned the meals and shopped for the ingredients. Instead, I’ve been winging it, and that has nothing to do with the chicken that was in these dinners. I’ll explain.
On Tuesday I was all prepared with a grocery list to head off to Whole Foods and shop for the week. I had a few meals planned, but nothing terribly exciting. I’m in a bit of a food slump, I think the last three Rachael Ray meals left me disillusioned with the whole meal planning thing. Blah, de, blah, de, blah, we have to eat, what should I make? But, I had forced myself to choose a few meals and write up a grocery list, anyway. And then the tree pruning guys showed up on my doorstep or, more literally, in my driveway. They parked their big old cherry pickin’ truck across the bottom of my driveway and I couldn’t get my car out of the garage. By the time they had moved, it was time to pick up Louisa from her after school activity, and no time was left for grocery shopping. Let me just say, I wasn’t terribly disappointed. I was in no mood to food shop, especially for meals that held little interest for me.
But there was still the problem of dinner. And, there was the problem that I had planned to try out a yoga class with a friend right before dinner. And when I got back from yoga class, Louisa was going to need a ride to soccer practice. It was almost time to do the unthinkable, at least unthinkable outside of a dorm room/bachelor apartment, and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner. But, first, I went freezer diving. I found: a meaty boneless chicken breast; a head of broccoli in the refrigerator; a block of Irish cheddar that I forgot to serve on St. Pat’s Day. I turned to the internet, entered those ingredients in a search engine, and came up with a chicken casserole recipe that I could whip up with my ingredients. Well, whip up is a term I use loosely – tornado up is more accurate since I needed to prep the entire thing before I left for class. I was missing one key ingredient, Bisquick, but fortunately the recipe linked to a way to prepare your own Bisquick at home – another step to “whip up.”
I poached the chicken, chopped and steamed the broccoli (since I was using fresh, not frozen), mixed the Bisquick, grated the cheddar, chopped the onion, made the custard mixture, and put it all together. There was only one issue remaining, the timing of the dish since it couldn’t sit in the oven the entire time I was out. The problem was solved by asking Annie to manage the oven part of the recipe. I gave her a timer which was set for when it needed to go in, and she remembered to set it for when it needed to come out. When I arrived home, dinner was out on the counter and waiting for me.
It turned out, that this dinner that was merely planned on the basis of available ingredients and limited cooking time, was better than the last few meals I had cooked with a plan. It was even seconds-worthy. Let’s hear it for Winging It, Part 1.
Ham, Apple, Cabbage Linguine
This was the final dish I cooked last week from Rachael Ray’s weeknight recipes. It was easy enough since it required ham, linguine and cole-slaw mix. But the flavors didn’t work for any of us.
Maybe the flavors were too dull for our picky palates. Maybe the colors were too pale. Perhaps the cuisine wasn’t ethnic enough for our personal tastes. But Rachael, we weren’t feeling the love. One good recipe out of three dishes just wasn’t enough for me. Tonight I’ll try the last dish I had planned for last week. It had been superseded by takeout on a night when I hadn’t started cooking by 7 and Joe, on a whim, called to ask if I wanted him to bring home dinner. Since last week was so insane, I wasn’t going to turn down that offer. Nope, I wasn’t going to be a martyr – martyrs don’t earn medals. At least not in my family.
I’ll report back tomorrow on how stir-fried rice, chorizo and green beans turn out.
Off to the kitchen.