This is the biggest flop that I have had in my kitchen for a while. If you will oblige I can explain.
The house was chaos, pure chaos. My two year old son was running circles through out the entire space of the house hollering at the top of his lungs. Behind him followed two over sized dogs, knocking things over as they trampled in excited pursuit. This was the first disaster as I was trying to prepare dinner: Mommy, the dogs spilled my milk.
No problem. I stopped and cleaned it up. I was already a bit on edge, a bit frazzled just from the day in general and for some reason dinner time preparation takes that slightly frazzled me and can turn me into a crazed maniac.
I went back to cooking. My husband was going to be late, he just called to let me know. This messed up the timing of dinner.
After a few deep breaths and relaxing to the sounds of Sarah Groves music in my kitchen I returned to the meal.
“Oh no!” In cleaning up the milk, finding a good activity for my son, corralling the dogs, and talking on the phone I let the beans burn to the bottom of the pan.
The smoke alarm went off sending me through the roof and giving a similar reaction to the rest of the household.
This meal was going to be salvaged. I was not giving up. I scrapped the unburned beans from the top of the pan and set them aside.
Now, to the artichoke. I try to do fresh food whenever possible. I do not like to buy canned food due to the chemicals released into the food from the can. I bought a fresh artichoke and thought that this was what I needed for the meal.
NO. I did not need AN artichoke, I needed lots of artichoke hearts. From this one beautiful artichoke came ONE tiny little “heart” for the meal. No problem. I would use the one little artichoke heart and improvise.
So, now the grand meal has been reduced to noodles with burned beans and ONE artichoke heart flavoring it.
I still was not giving up.
Enter the kitchen a crying two year old, sobbing actually.
“Momma, I go pee pee.”
Standing in the kitchen is a wet spot. He peed on the floor. To make matters worse before I could even respond the dogs run through the kitchen, right through the pee and track it all over the place.
I scooped up my son and we went upstairs to clean him up.
Now, here is where thing get really crazy. Here is where my meal plan for the night really falls apart…..
When I came back down it dawned on me that I left the beans and the measly artichoke heart on the counter. But, where was it?
The sounds of dogs licking their chops resonated in my ears. In my brief absence the dogs, totally unlike them, put their paws up on the counter and ATE our meal.
We were left with one pot of overcooked Fettuccine noodles.
The tears welled up in my eyes just as my husband walked into the door and said, “Hi Honey, are you burning something?”
So, I can not report to you how this meal tasted but the dogs like it. They eat poo though so I would not take their opinion with much weight.
What did I do? How did I save the moment?
I ALWAYS have tupperware of home made frozen marinara sauce in my freezer. When I am running low I make a huge batch and restock.
I wiped my tears away, asked my hubby to take the dogs outside, put my son in the playroom with his willing father and microwaved some sauce.
I threw the sauce over the noodles and we had a meal.
I hope my little story of meal planning/preparation gone seriously awry makes you smile.
ps…I do think that the artichoke is a really beautiful vegetable. Look at the picture above. I could have used artichokes as my wedding bouquet and saved a lot of money. Hehehe….
philben5 says
Is there somewhere on your blog that I can find the recipe for the disastrous artichoke Fettuccine? I so remember those days when one thing led to another with little ones! Enjoy them so much b/c before you know it, they’re grown!
blessings
Roxanne
bobbi says
poor thing, i hope your week gets better! =)
Sarah says
This post made me laugh! Only because my house seems to be the same way around dinner time and I too get sooo frazzled! I can SO relate!
MommaHughes says
Seriously, nothing is prettier than the hydrangeas, (sp?) but you are right…close second what be artichokes. 😉 That was quite an eventful afternoon. You deserved dinner out, but I am proud of you for grabbing what you had made in the freezer. And mom of the year award goes to….(drum roll please) Katie, “Praise the LORD, I will never do this night again”, Brabson!
Love you.
hwg2g2 says
I can relate! A few tears never hurt a thing. I think they help. Thank you for the story, now I know it is not just me that those type of things happen to.
Carey says
You poor thing! At least one good thing came of it… You made your readers laugh! Congratulations on being prepared with backup marinara!
Ethiopianmomma says
Philben5…I will post the recipe later today for you! Have to head to church now.