Corny Meal

Every now and then I feel ambitious enough to cook a meal, though usually there isn't enough creativity or supply to make a full one meal, just parts.

Yesterday was one of those days.  I threw a corned beef chunk into the crock pot, added some water, and poured the spices it came with inside.  I switched it on high and set the timer.  Poof dinner was on the way.

I usually don't bother with sides, but yesterday I was feeling quite Betty Crockerish, so I looked around the kitchen.  Hmmm.  No potatoes, no vegetables... bananas?  No, that didn't go.

Finally, I found a box of corn bread.  Yes!  It didn't matter that it had been in the cabinet for a number of years; I didn't even buy it, so I don't know what its life was like before it arrived in my kitchen.  All I knew was it didn't have an expiration date printed on it, nor did it have any bugs crawling around inside when I opened the package.  All I had to do was add milk, an egg, and a shocking amount of oil and bake.  Simple!  But as usual, my oven conspired against me and dried the bread into a mouth-sticking mess.  I was able to eat some by pouring coffee in my mouth simultaneously to push it down the pipes.

So there was dinner:  dried corn bread and corned beef.  Yes, these two items seem incongruent, but notice they both have the word "corn" in them, so I went with it.

When I got home from work at 9, I asked Mark about dinner.  I was expecting a parade and news article about my monumental effort.  He said it was fine.  Just fine. In the kitchen, the corn bread was almost all gone (everyone in my family must have been totally dehydrated after it soaked up all the liquid in their bodies) but the corned beef seemed strangely untouched.  I asked Mark if he had any and he looked a bit sheepish.  He finally admitted that when he opened the container of meat, it smelled like very bad farts so he couldn't bring himself to eat any.  He did, however, manage to feed it to the kids, who didn't seem to mind the farty meat.

Well, I guess it is time for me to step down from my post as master chef and back into the role of C+ wife and mom.

This concludes the cooking portion of our segment for today.  Until next time, America (it is very unlikely that I will be cooking anything for a few more weeks).