I just pulled the cobbler from the oven. The barley and rice chicken soup is brewing with Crockzilla fired up on all pistons. The smell of okra and potatoes fills the air. Now before I project the wrong persona here as someone who knows how to cook, let me make it perfectly clear that I do not…at all. As for the chicken soup, don't go thinking I went out and cooked a bird. I have never bought an animal carcass and cooked it and I can say that only twice in my life do I remember ever buying a pre-cooked whole chicken. Tonight was one of those nights. I just make it a habit not to eat anything that looks like the animal it came from. I don’t like feeling like I am in biology class dissecting an animal that I am about to eat. Plus there is all that extra…you know…discard. Oouuup, there went the gag reflex. No, I am not much of the hunter gatherer, kill-it/skin-it/eat-it kind of guy. Just give me a boneless, skinless chicken patty and I am fine. There is a reason though why the house smells like okra, chicken and Hawaii; let me explain.
I got off schedule today and went to Kroger two hours past my normal dinner time to find something to eat. I was walking down the isles without any concept of what I wanted (shopping while hungry…yeah that’s always a good plan). I starting thinking about tonight’s pending tornadic activity along with what I wanted to eat for dinner and it all morphed into a “What would I have as my last meal?” shopping experience. Of course it was tainted by the constraints of what I know how to cook so my choices were from a very short list.
I guess this means I have not been challenging my brain enough or filling it with new ideas and concepts since now it tends to wander off into tangents like this. Nevertheless, that’s what it does and I found myself surfing the Kroger isles hungry and pretending it was my last meal before “lift off”.
The obvious answer was okra and potatoes, so I loaded up on them. There was one of those 10 for 10 sales going on so I was piling up my shopping cart with bags of frozen okra and looked up at my reflection in the glass of the freezer door. I looked like one of those extreme couponers who had just hit the “snip and save” jackpot…but it didn’t stop me. I was saving!
I started planning on making blackberry cobbler again, as it is my favorite, but got thrown completely off track when I passed the deli warmers displaying their roasted chickens all bagged up and ready to go. I grabbed a bird, threw it in the cart and then starting trying to figure out what I was going to do with it. I do love Crockzilla, and I remembered my bag of whole grain rice at home so bada-bing that was it. I was going to make chicken and rice soup in the crock pot. My stomach rumbled with excitement.
With a cart full of frozen okra and one dead chicken, I hungrily made another predatory lap down a few more isles. I passed a can of cream of coconut….eureka! I had a flashback to my pina-colabbler from over a year ago. I had to make it and this time add the cream of coconut. With any luck I might even weigh myself down enough to not be able to be blown away! Now normally I try to make everything on the healthy side and I only gave the nutritional chart ( which I usually call the “warning label”)on the can of cream of coconut a quick glance. I remember seeing something about 5 grams of fat…it’s natural…that’s not so bad…it could be my last…go for it.
Once home I threw the okra/potato medley in the oven, the dismembered chicken into the Crockpot, and I started mixing everything together for the cobbler. I realized that I had never written down the recipe and that I was once again going to have to wing it. I read the cream of coconut can as I was pouring it in to the concoction and saw the 5 grams of fat and 130 calories per serving warning but then I saw how many servings were in the little 15 oz can…15! What? Fifteen serving in one little can? Once again I was glad that I have no ability whatsoever to do math in my head but still, 15 x130 calories for one ingredient = weight gain…with or without a calculator.
So I sat down to right all this and forgot to bring the timer in with me. I never heard the “ding”. It’s the pina-colabbler; the bottom burned. Since I made it I can over look it and have to say it is not bad at all…if you like things that tasted like something you might have tried to cook in college with the random ingredients you found left over in your refrigerator. For my guest one, it is perfect.
I know my love handles are getting ready to take on another “freshmen 10” from this as I will be the only one brave enough to eat it. I don’t want to be wasteful…I’ll just have a full waist. I think I can justify it all as I will be able to balance this with my barley and rice chicken soup (yep I finally found a use for the bag-o-barley that’s been hanging out on top of the microwave).
Oh yeah, the okra/potato medley was deeelish. Some last meal, huh? In reality, with me not cooking, the last meal would involve baby back ribs, crab legs and lobster tail. I know, it’s time for me to put this brain to work so it will stop wandering tangents like this so it can focus on more important issues of the day. I am wondering if that second bowl of cobbler will be as good as the first? There’s no time like the present…what with the pending tornadic activity and all.
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