Kitchen Adventures, Part Three

We have been trying to eat more home-cooked meals to save some money, and I had seen a recipe for enchiladas that I thought would be pretty good. On a day that I had to stay home with Zane because he was not feeling well, I decided to try the recipe. The package that the recipe was on indicated that "Prep time" would be 15 minutes. I figured that I could do that. I managed to cook and shred some chicken while Zane was napping, and was very proud of myself.

I got all of the ingredients together and started to prepare the food. First on the agenda was to chop a small onion. Okay...I started chopping the onion.

"Mama, what's that?" Zane wanted to know. I explained that it was an onion, and told him that the smell would make him cry. While I am explaining this, my eyes started to water, so then I had to explain to him that Mama was not actually crying. Since I have a sacrosanct rule about using sharp implements when blind, I had to put down the knife and wait until my eyes weren't so teary. All told, it took me about 20 minutes to get the onion chopped.

Next I put the onions and some olive oil into a skillet to brown them. That went okay, so then I added all the other ingredients to the skillet, per the instructions, stirred it all together. It was time to put what was in the skillet(which smelled REALLY yummy) into tortillas, and then...

"Mama, I go poop," came a plaintive voice from the other side of the kitchen. I sighed heavily in my frustration at being interrupted. In my defense, I was starting to get a little hungry, so I was very focused on my task.

"Okay, sweets," I replied. Then I realized that Zane wasn't wearing a pullup, he was wearing underpants. He had been telling us when he had to 'go', but I guess that he was very focused on what he was doing, just like his Mama.

Ten minutes later, after I washed my hands, I went back into the kitchen to find that some of the gooey-goodness that was in the skillet on the stove had burned. I tasted it, and it still tasted good to me, so I wrapped everything up in the tortillas and got everything in the oven. I did think that it was kind of odd that there was not really any sauce to go on the enchiladas, but I had followed the recipe and the recipe did not call for any rojo sauce or verde sauce. I cleaned up the kitchen. I was very proud of myself.

When Larry came home and found out what we were having for dinner, he was skeptical.

"What about the sauce?" he wanted to know.

Marriage-Saving Rule #478: when your spouse has been working hard and cooking your dinner for you, do not say anything except "Thank you". I gave my husband a pointed look, and subtracted -50 DHP(dedicated husband points, in gamer terms). We sat at the table and began eating.

Objectively speaking, the enchiladas were pretty good for a first attempt. They would have been better with some verde sauce or even some queso. (these weren't really enchiladas, no matter what the Philly Cream Cheese people say.) Overall, I was quite pleased with how they turned out.

Larry ate about four bites of one enchilada, then got up from the table and came back with a jar of peanut butter and some bread. I watched him approach the table and sit down with my mouth hanging open a little, because who DOES that? Who completely blows off someone's efforts like that? Even if the food is downright horrid, who would hurt someone's feelings by indicating that they would rather eat a FREAKIN'PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH than the food you spent more than fifteen minutes preparing and cooking?

"What are you doing?" I finally asked.

"They really need sauce," Larry explained. I just looked at him.

"But they're okay," he added. I continued to blanky stare at him.

"But they're pretty good?" Larry is slow sometimes, but he finally realized that he was in the deep water without swim fins.

"But they're DELICIOUS!" Larry said again. I shifted my eyes toward the peanut butter, then back to my husband's face.

This is the sort of moment when I fervently wish that the Hand of God would come down from on High and smack my husband right upside the head.