After picking me up from the train last night, my husband took great pains to tell me about his busy day. He and the boys had spent ginormous amounts time re-arranging furniture and clearing clutter in advance of the air duct cleaning company’s arrival. They were due at 11am. But, as fate would have it, at 12:15, the phone rang. They would not be coming after all. Apparently, their star duct scrubber had called in sick.
Undeterred, the cleaning and decluttering continued at Casa de Platespinner. In fact, when I walked through the door, I kept my sunglasses on to shield my eyes from the sparkle and sheen.
There wasn’t a speck of dust to be found on any surface in the living room, nor was there a crumb to be found in the kitchen.
Normally, this would fill me with joy. But that night, it filled me with – well, I’m not sure what it filled me with. All I know, it wasn’t food.
“What’s for dinner?” I ventured.
“Oh. That.” My husband, hand to his chin, opened the pantry door and surveyed its contents. A moment later, he struck the same pose in front of the fridge and followed it with six bars of “Um.”
Just as I was about to venture out for a rendezvous with a deep dish, cheesy, saucy supper, my spouse thrust his arm into the freezer and began extracting things like frost-bitten pot pies, forgotten fish sticks and mysterious vegetarian entrees from our local organic grocer.
Not tempted by anything he offered, I silently assembled a salad for us both and decided this was not a battle worth fighting.
Instead, this morning, before I left for work, I hoisted my beloved crockpot onto the counter. Next to it, I placed three pounds of frozen chicken breasts to thaw, a can of cream of mushroom soup and a packet of dry onion soup. Next to that, I positioned my dog-eared copy of “Fix It and Forget It”, opened at page 170, and circled “Chicken in Wine” – a simple dish, yes, but we all have to start somewhere.
When he dropped me off at the train, I shouted over my shoulder, “And use the Riesling.”
The expression on his face told me we’d be having PBJs for our evening meal.
When I got home tonight, my nose tipped me off to the fact that my fears were unfounded. His first crockpot encounter was a success. I’m not sure why he hadn’t thought to use it before. Sure, it doesn’t elicit the primitive he-man nature of grilling raw meat over an open flame, but it produces the same end result. Dinner.
Who knows what I’ll find waiting for me tomorrow evening – Hungarian Goulash, perhaps? Or, maybe a cranberry pork roast? As long as it’s not half a bag of frozen peas and some freezer-burned hash browns, I’ll be a happy camper.
Got any crockpot recipes you care to share…?
Barbara Valentin 