We’re Cookin’ Now!

With Michelle working in town for the week, Aly and are discovering that, left to our own devices we don’t just get by, we thrive. We’re really enjoying the cooking adventures we’ve shared so far It hasn’t been anything too adventurous, but we’ve moved well beyond our usual selections from our usual “don’t-worry-I’ll-fix-dinner-tonight” menu.

The other night Aly tried something new. She cooked a package of chicken thighs in the crock pot. She chose the family’s old reliable cream soup mix as her sauce, but discovered we were out, so she whipped up a new batch in a hurry. I sliced a large sweet potato into ½-inch sections, chunked up a handful of Egyptian walking onions from the garden, and threw them in on top with some homegrown garlic cloves. While that cooked, I dry-sautéed a few hedgehog mushrooms Aly had found in the forest that day as a side dish for me (Aly hunts mushrooms, but doesn’t want to eat them). With a few slices of fresh tomato from the garden, and a nice glass of wine (for me) we had a meal fit for a king and his princess.

Today, Aly’s going to try something new: sourdough Danish pastries. We’ll have leftovers from the chicken dinner tonight, a compromise, as we know we should really use the remaining pieces to make a chicken soup with the leftover vegetable broth and root vegetables we need to eat soon. Maybe tomorrow night we’ll make our onion-garlic pasta sauce again. We made it the other night, but I let the ingredients heat in the cast-iron skillet too long. They got delightfully crunchy, and we enjoyed it a lot, but I want a second chance at getting it right.

All in all, we may run out of meal times before Michelle gets home. Since she’s been cooking for special diets all week, I’m sure she won’t complain about taking a break for a while while Aly and I complete our plans.