Cooking Spree and Dinner Party Flop

For the last 2 weeks I feel my life has regained a small semblance of sanity and structure; it almost feels like we have a schedule - almost. Nevertheless, I took advantage of the respite to attend a few of my slightly neglected responsibilities, for instance, feeding my family. Well, Paige gets her meals, but I mean Dave and me.

Tuesday I awoke feeling refreshed from a baby sleeping from 10pm to 5am! (Yeah, hasn't happened since.) So I awoke and made scrambled eggs and the Barefoot Contessa's sour cream banana pancakes. Dave, Paige, and I all had breakfast in bed.

next came a triple batch of homemade granola, and then I experimented with cream cheese fettucini alfredo with citrus steamed vegetables and pecan parmesen chicken. Mmmm.

Wednesday I made a dish I loved, but Dave chose to take parmesan chicken for leftover lunch instead. It was a teriyaki rice bowl with sesame seed oil dressing.

Thursday I again consulted the Contessa and used her chicken stew recipe to make the best chicken pot pie I've EVER tasted! Wow.

Friday morning I spent the day in the kitchen. Because I left my sling in Tennessee I had to improvise (thus the photo with Paige in my apron.) Then when I didn't want to be holding Paige I put her in the bedroom and rigged up a floor fan to blow the ceiling fan just enough to keep Paige's attention without being too fast. I dangled something for her to look at as well. (Please ignore the bare walls and unmade bed.)

That morning we enjoyed the granola and ate fresh fudgy banana muffins (Hershey chocolate in the center.) Then I spent the rest of the day preparing for a few dinner guests in honor of a hopeful dental student staying with us while he interviewed. I made bacon spanish rice, garlic black beans, coca-cola pork, and a green tomatillo/ranch dressing. Kind of Cafe Rio style. For dessert we simply had homemade hot chocolate and cinnamon pecan twist bread.

Sound impressive? Allow me to tell you what a flop the whole thing was! First, I made the pecan bread dough early thing in the morning to give it plenty of time and get it out of the way. Unfortunately, I let the "warm" oven get a little too warm and instead of simply rising the whole outside of the dough baked. I had to scrape it off and use only the gooey half in the middle. Then I kept it in the oven until it was time to bake. What I didn't realize was with all the stove stop cooking the oven would still get hot enough to melt the brown sugar inside the bread and so when it finally baked it was flat with a puddle of brown (sugar) oozing out of it. Luckily it still tasted good.

Next, the black beans were kept hot in a crock pot after baking on the stove - they turned into mush looking like black refried beans.

The rice: I didn't notice the recipe said "Serves 40 people." Need I say more.

Hot chocolate: I love dark bitter chocolate and so it didn't occur to me that perhaps "add coco powder to taste" might have negative repercussions. No one finished their cup but me.

But the real kicker, I didn't even taste my food until it was cold because my baby decided to throw her first full on, inconsolable, fit. I spend the first 45 minutes back in the bedroom trying to calm her while everyone else ate.

At least the company was nice, and the fact that Dave cleaned the kitchen.