Somebody cheated him out of dessert
It was a challenge, I think. Kennie Sue, our 10-year-old friend, had warned…er…informed us that she planned to spend some of her vacation days at our house. And, she had plans for her visit.
“We’re going to bake and cook. We’ll make so much food it will cover the counter top,’ she told my lovely wife.
Now what we don’t really need is lots and lots of food prepared since there are just the three of us. And, I personally don’t need the types of foods Kennie Sue was hoping to create.
Not that I don’t like pies, cakes, cookies, brownies, ham, scalloped potatoes, etc. (I’m making myself hungry just writing about it) but my frame doesn’t need the extra calories.
Anyway, I was drafted into this cookoff and given the assignment to make a couple of main dishes.
Kennie Sue definitely wanted a ham dinner with peas and potatoes but I was allowed the latitude in what other entrees I would prepare.
It was a Friday afternoon and I was hungry for lasagna so I stopped at the store on my way home to get the ingredients.
No one was home (not counting the pets) when I arrived, a situation I prefer when I start cooking. Too many people wander into the kitchen when I’m at work and just get in the way.
At first I was just going to make a small dish of the pasta treat but then figured that it took just as much work to make a small dish as it did a large one. Throwing caution (and my waistline) to the wind, I opted for the large dish.
After getting everything assembled I put it in the oven for the prescribed time.
My only problem is that while I cook, I eat. So by the time the dish was done, so was I. I took it out of the oven and went into the living room to watch the news.
Kennie Sue came early the next day. We spent several morning hours out in our door-to-door ministry and, when we came home, I decided it was time to make my second entr’e – hamloaf.
My wife had found an interesting recipe for it in a new cookbook. It calls for ground ham, sausage, beef, eggs, milk, the usual seasonings, and includes a tangy sauce to pour over the finished product.
I don’t make hamloaf much because all I have to grind the ham is a small electric processor. You can’t put any more than a chunk or two of ham into it at one time. (Somehow when we moved my lovely wife managed to misplace or give away my full-size food processor).
Grinding the ham into the proper dimensions is quite a chore with that miniscule tool. But I did it, put together a nice large loaf, and popped it into the oven.
You may realize by now that it’s been two days of cooking and so far, I was the only one cooking. Kennie Sue and my wife had managed to mix up a bowl of brownie batter, which took all of about five minutes, but they began eating it raw. I don’t think there was enough left to bake half a brownie.
Meanwhile, I made coleslaw, was planning some sweet and sour chicken, and visited the grocery store again to pick up a few more ingredients.
The counter’s not quite covered with food. As it stands, desserts consist of a package of store-bought sugar wafers and a glob of brownie dough.
Everybody has enjoyed my efforts, gobbling them down. And in all fairness, my wife made scalloped potatoes and cooked some frozen peas.
But the entrees….Mmmmmmm…are they good. Well, who needs dessert. Don’t tell Kennie Sue and my wife I said that.
I’m still banking on a pie.
Have a good day.