Dinner

Sometimes I am just not at the top of my culinary game. I go through spurts where my menus are planned, my shopping is done, and dinners are great. Then there are other times, such as now, where I find myself stuck in the dinner dilemma. Before I know it, the clock says it's 5 and I really have no idea what to cook. Even worse, nothin' is sounding like it's gonna hit the spot. So I flip thoughtlessly through my cookbooks hoping something new and yummy will pop out at me and I will just magically have all the ingredients. Hmmm. Cold cereal anyone? Okay, that's pathetic. So last night, to try and break up the humdrum of the not-so-hot-dinner week, I attempted a chicken and rice casserole. Sounds easy enough, huh? I've had plenty of casserole successes in the past. Well, at the last minute I decided to add a touch of catalina dressing hoping it would add a little zing to the dish. Let's just say upon pulling the casserole out of the oven, it was PINK. With a little orange cheese on top. At first I thought I could get away with it because it was close to Valentine's day, and maybe Jacob would think I was being festive. It tasted okay, it was edible at least. When I asked Jacob what he thought, he pretended that I was talking to someone else hoping he wouldn't have to answer. His smile and his lack of eye contact clued me off that he was really trying hard to decide how honest he was going to be. The look on his face did it and all I could do was laugh my guts out. He immediately joined in. So there we sat at the dinner table, laughing hysterically at what honest-to-goodness looked like someone had eaten a bunch of valentine's candy followed up by chicken and rice casserole and then had vomited on our plates. I had tears in my eyes I was laughing so hard. Bless your sweet little heart Jacob for trying so hard to protect my feelings. But, I can admit when truly, dinner looks like throw up. Aaah, we had a good laugh anyway. And a bowl of cereal.