Taking Back the Glory

For the past couple of years, Hubs’ work schedule has allowed him to get home about an hour earlier than me.  This is completely wonderful, because it means that he cooks dinner.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind cooking at all, but there’s something delightful about walking into the house at the end of the day to find dinner ready, or at least mostly ready.  Also, he’s an excellent cook, so everything is invariably delicious.

This practice, however, has had an unexpected result.  Because he cooks most often, and because it is so good, my children have developed a belief that he is a better cook than I am.  My son often says that dad is the cook and mom is the baker.  This is WRONG.  I can cook my ass off and I take great offense at these people accusing me of being the second best cook in this house.  Not only am I a good cook, but I can walk into this house at 5:30 and have a meal on the table, dishwasher loaded, help a kid study and wash a load of laundry by 6pm.  Unlike my sweet husband, who is completely incapable of preparing a meal without totally trashing the kitchen in the process.

Now, though, circumstances are conspiring to put me back on top.  Hubs has recently announced that he will be working late until further notice, and I will now be responsible for dinner.  Oh, dude.  I have so got this.  My time has come.  Time to put an end to all the silly jokes (that are not funny) about my cooking shortcomings.

funnyshare.org

Last night we were scheduled to have fried rice and pot stickers.  Sadly, I had a giant lapse and forgot to take the ground pork out of the freezer.  That pushed pot stickers to a Monday meal.  This is an issue because, generally, this is a family activity.  It takes a long time to make a pile of dumplings, therefore, we make the kids help us assemble them.  We have a tiny little dumpling sweatshop, if you will.  Pushing this meal to Monday means that (dumdumDUM)  I am on my own.  Also, I don’t believe I have ever actually make fried rice.  The thing about having two cooks in the house is that you both develop your own specialties.  He makes fried rice.  I don’t make it, because I’ve never had to.  I know how to make it, but the pressure is on.  Believe you me, if it is not as good or better than Hubs’ fried rice, I will hear about it.

The other issue is that this meal requires a lot of things to happen all at the same time.  My sweet little son assured me that he will likely not have homework tonight, and he will be happy to help me.  That’s super generous of him, and I will absolutely take him up on it, but he’s too short to effectively manage the wok and the actual cooking of pot stickers is not for amateurs.  My daughter, who has much more experience in the kitchen, and is significantly taller, would undoubtedly be a huge help.  She, however, did not volunteer her services, preferring to lock herself in her bedroom to watch youtube videos and catalog all the ways in which her father and I are lame and unfair.  As her mother, and queen ruler of everything in her life, I could require her to help, but then she would just get that look on her face that makes me get all irritable and start quoting Dazed and Confused at her. (“Get that face off your head!”)  Sometimes it just easier to roll on and be thankful that at least one of your children still likes you.

So, off I go to prep everything I possibly can early in the day and try to develop a workable timeline, or possibly create a clone.  I also need to come up with a list of ways in which my good child can assist.  (oh relax, it’s a joke!  Neither one of mine are that good.  hahahaha!)  If I can get through tonight, tomorrow is Greek chicken pitas.  That’s the easy stuff.  If I play my cards right, I’ll claim my rightful place at the top of the cooking pyramid by the end of the week.

A little Dumpling Drama

As a child, I did not like chicken and dumplings one little bit.  I might have eaten them once, but that’s just conjecture.  I am the type of person who will determine if I like food based on the smell, visual appeal and texture.  Taste is not the only consideration, or even the most important one.  I suspect the texture of chicken and dumplings to be a factor here, but, again, I’m guessing.  Who can really say what was in my twisted little mind?  I am, after all, the same child who was once served a half peach on my school lunch tray and recoiled in horror because I thought it was a giant egg yolk.  Anyway, I have lived thirtyish years without chicken and dumplings and I’ve been perfectly happy about it.

They look like egg yolks, you know they do. Stop laughing.

But recently, I have been put in charge of making dinner for my family one night a week.  On weekends, hubs and I cook together and Tuesday through Friday, he cooks.  Monday is on me.  There are no excuses, because I have the whole day off.  I am expected to deliver.  My pride is at stake, because my ungrateful little children have recently taken to voicing the opinion that Dad cooks better than Mom.  Yes, everything is a competition in my house.

Enter chicken and dumplings, the ace up my sleeve.  My kids have never had it.  I do not cook things that I don’t like, unless it’s potato salad, which I will make two times per year, Easter and Christmas, non-negotiable.  Hubs doesn’t cook biscuit-y things, so we’re a dumpling-free family.  You say dumplings and my kids start looking for the wonton wrappers to make pot stickers (a really awesome and delicious family tradition we started by accident, but that’s another story.)

One gloomy and cold Monday, I decided to go for it.  After all, it’s pretty much just chicken soup.  Everyone likes that.  How much different could it really be?  So I spent the day making chicken stock, shredding (very, very hot) chicken and googling dumpling recipes.  On a related note, are you aware that some chefs, cough, cough, Michael Symon, cough, cough, call for CHICKEN FAT in the dumplings?  If you’d like to try that out, stop by my house for extra chicken fat, because in my house, we put chicken fat where it belongs, in the trash.  Gag.  Anyway, I cooked my heart out and served up chicken and dumplings for the first time ever.

I am hungry.

Hubs loved it, my daughter loved it, but they’re the easy ones.  Those two will eat anything, from nuclear hot chicken wings to buffet sashimi.  I found it to be delicious, which was a pleasant surprise, but the clear winner for the night was Picky McWonteatanything, my very discriminating son, who generally begins a meal with the words, “This looks gross.”

He LOVED IT.  He loved it so much that all these months later, he’s still talking about it.  Dad is a better cook than Mom, except Mom’s chicken and dumplings.  Ah, thusly, I am honored.  He’s been asking me to make it for a while, but we had an early spring and it’s been too warm outside for such a hearty meal.  More importantly, it’s too warm for me stand over the stove for the twenty thousand hours it takes to make the whole darn meal from scratch.

But I know something he doesn’t know.  On Monday, it’s going to be cool outside. I’m making chicken and dumplings.  I can barely wait to collect my praise and accolades.  I can also barely wait to eat chicken and dumplings.  Everybody wins.  Except the chicken.

photos via google images and www.bakingbites.com