Last Night I Baked and Mixed

First, I made a broccoli and cheese souffle for dinner because that's all I had available. All our meat was frozen solid in our new handy freezer chest. Plus, it's what I had a taste for. So I quickly chopped and whipped and folded, grated, buttered and baked. Then sniffing children wandered in and all insisted that they had no memory of my making this (I have a blog post picture to prove it somewhere) and were not at all sure it would do for their dinner.

They ate it, but Sean mostly ate lettuce with French dressing. Which explains why he's been 52 lbs. for three years.

Then I cleaned the kitchen and started again, somewhat begrudgingly. I was not in the mood for the high stress job of pie making but luckily my dad came in with Thanksgiving cards with money for the boys (when did they start that?) and I took this opportunity to look pitiful and weak and ask, "Can I just use the Trader Joe's crust in my freezer chest for the pies? I don't want to make pie crust." I slumped my shoulders, threw back my head and leaned heavily on the island. My dad, who fancies himself both a pie crust connoisseur and an expert pie crust maker, gave the official word: Yes.

The crusts didn't fit the pie plates, so I rolled them a bit and stretched them. They shrunk ridiculously in the oven so it looks like I made pumpkin custard with slightly crusty edges. They are two of the ugliest pumpkin pies you've ever seen. Luke had some concern on the outset of this project that I was not making enough pies. He requested three. I told him that was impossible, it's two or four - the can makes two at a time. Furthermore I only have one pie plate and one piece of pottery that acts (poorly) as a pie plate. But upon awakening this morning I'm thinking someone needs to go to the Acme and buy two more pie plates and I'll start over today. Luke, Mr. I Need More Pumpkin Pie Than The Usual Person, with have to be happy with the ugly two. And I, Mrs. I Can't Take the Stress of Making My Own Crusts This Year, will make my own crusts...under a time limit this time.

After I made the pies, I dug around the basement closets and shelves and got my ice cream maker to start on the ice cream. I made chocolate chocolate chip ice cream in my Cuisinart ice cream maker to bring to dinner. The ice cream maker is really loud, so Stan turned up his movie in the living room and Sean turned up the computer and tv in the kitchen while the machine roared on for a half hour. I cleaned up again.

Meanwhile, my mother in law called from Indiana and said, "I'm making the stuffing and I can't stop thinking about you because making the stuffing is your job!" In Indiana they put oysters in their stuffing...now my ancestors were oysterman and I had never heard of such until I moved to the midwest...where, to my knowledge, they have no oysters. For that matter, I'd never seen a canned oyster until I moved to the midwest and the idea of a canned oyster to me is, shew...I don't know. It is my Bloomington holiday job and I'll say no more.

Then I started on the cream of the taco dip for appetizer, today I'll chop the vegetables for the top. Cream cheese, sour cream, taco sauce, onion powder, paprika, tabasco sauce, garlic powder...uh, no garlic powder. Plopped the cream base in a bowl, into the fridge and I'll get some at mom's today before I set it out with the Tostitoes.

By this time Stan was reading to Sean about Bathsheeba from his children's Bible book. The two older boys had sacked out in the basement after watching some scary movie. And I was hungry, cause truth to tell, broccoli cheese souffle isn't very filling. I fingered the avocados I bought at Sams the other day and found a ripe one. I wasn't in the mood for food preparation so I hastily sliced through it and dropped the two pieces in a cereal bowl. Turned around and grabbed a piece of garlic. The small grater was in the washer so I simply held the clove in my fingers and chopped away on it, dropping big chunks over the avocado. I'd seen a lemon somewhere....oh, there it is, on my china closet in a narrow wooden plate and wrapped in one of those rubber bracelets, like Lance Armstrong's Live Strong one, but this was orange and yellow tie-dye and I have no idea what it said or why it was snugly hugging a lemon in my kitchen. I freed the lemon from the political or idealistic statement by which it was bound and sliced it in half and squeezed it over the avocado and garlic, picking out the seeds and flinging them into the trash. Reaching around, I grabbed the sea salt grinder and the giant jar of chili pepper my mother gave me years ago and I will never ever run out of. Then I took a steak knife and a fork and began cutting away in the bowl, somewhat furiously. I cut and cut until the pieces were small enough to fit on one of those scoop-sized Tostitoes and then I grabbed the bag (one of two that were supposed to have been saved for today) and the bowl of guacamole and put myself down in the living room in front of the tv and ate the whole bowl. Stan actually came down at the very end and tried to pretend it was a common bowl for any who might walk by, but I hugged it closer and quickly finished the last pieces of avocado and garlic on my scoop.

I'm off to make two pies, buy a bag of Tostitoes and some powdered garlic and chop some vegetables.

Hope yours is happy!