Pity Party, Table for One

** Warning: Heavy whining ahead**

I could feel it sneaking up on me all week. A random series of sneezes, a morning cough that felt like I had been smoking and then the "sneeze that changed it all" came along. Boom! I was down for the count. Another sign that I am getting sick? I often pick clothes out of the closet that haven't been worn in a couple of years and end up feeling as awful as I look by the end of the day.

One thing you quickly realize once you become a parent is when you get sick you are on your own when it comes to care and gaining sympathy from your kids. The little kids still have their own little worlds to be tended to and you better not let that stuffy nose slow you down or they will let you know it.  Suck it up and have some Sudafed already!

My day off during the week is Friday and while I knew that I was down for the count, I went about my business but I seriously crumbled that night. I bought some frozen pizzas for dinner, threw those in the oven and went to bed. My kids thought they won the lottery. I had no will power at the grocery store. If they asked for it, I bought it. So they had frozen pizza, frosted cookies and creamsicles in the cart before we hit the check out aisle. I did say no to the Jell-O pudding cups, though! (I hate pudding) But I could see my son plotting my demise in the future because it was clear that Sick Mom = Food Bonanza.

I woke up on Saturday feeling even worse than the day before, I was all zoned out from repeated hits of Nyquil during the night and I knew that I was going to be of no good to my family. So between the chills, the sweats and the vapors I got them out of the house for the day so I could Just.Be.Sick.

I spent the day sleeping and drinking seltzer water. By the time evening rolled around, I was voraciously hungry and nothing seemed good to eat. Should I order War WonTon soup, heat up another frozen pizza or just eat frosted cookies? I was on my own for dinner since my son went to a sleepover at a friends house and the younger one was at a birthday party with her dad. What does a sick mom have for dinner?

Pity Party Tomato Soup, of course!


Pity Party Tomato Soup

Ingredients:
2 Tbls. Butter
1 Tbls. EVOO
1/2 onion chopped
2 Tbls. flour
2 Tbls. tomato paste
1/2 tsp. dried thyme or a few sprigs of fresh thyme if you have it
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 can of chicken broth
A few glugs of cream or half n half

Sautee the onion in the butter and EVOO for 5 minutes. Add the flour, tomato paste and thyme and let it cook for one minute. Then add the can of tomatoes (juice included) and can of broth and simmer for 15 minutes. Add a few glugs of cream and then puree the soup with an immersion blender. I feel better already just writing this down.

Rainbows and Waffles

Dinner wasn't going to be much to write about because when my husband is out of town on business I lose steam and lust for dinner after the second night. I really try and not give in to a frozen pizza or take out whenever possible, but there are those days when I am fried from work and commuting. But not this dinner... 

Now, this dinner wasn't as inspired as I wanted it to be but there were enough touches that took this dinner from "Meh" to "Zowie!" with my kids. The housekeeper had just cleaned the house from top to bottom and I did not want to do any more damage to the place than the kids can do to it in the two hours before bedtime. I remembered this great idea for using a waffle iron for your grilled cheese sandwiches and let me tell you, you have never seen two kids run to the table so quickly for dinner.

The six year old couldn't believe his luck and the two year old kept yelling "Pah-cake! Pah-cake for me!" They were giddy with joy. It reminded me of how excited I used to get about using my beloved Snackmaster, this little contraption that would toast and envelope whatever filling you put between two slices of bread. To a gangly ninth grade latchkey kid coming home from a harrowing day of high school drama, this was my transport to a happier place. I'd make myself a toasted sandwich after school and sit and watch re-runs of The Monkees till I was able to cope with the homework and the onslaught of phone calls from friends about who said what while running the 10-minute-mile in P.E.

My favorite concoction was to take two slices of Home Pride white bread and scoop some canned cherry pie filling in there and make a mini toasted cherry pie. Both the white bread and the canned cherry pie filling were no no's in our house, so I often bought those items with my babysitting money.

Back to present day, what took those waffle grilled cheese sandwiches to the next level was the Rainbow Salad. For some inexplicable reason my son requests this salad on a regular basis. I get a little tired of it, but I had all the ingredients for it and decided to quickly throw this together. What I love about this salad is all the subsititutions you can make - for red we use cherry tomatoes, yellow is corn, orange is grated carrots, green is either cucumbers, avocado or edamame and purple is purple cabbage. Throw that all in a bowl with some dressing and dinner was totally done. I had a ton of leftovers with the salad, so I ate it for lunch the next day with some diced rotisserie chicken. So many ways in which this was a winning dinner: 1) Minimal cleanup 2) Veggies were consumed without any fuss and 3) The kids think they got away with murder by having a waffle-ized grilled cheese sandwich. 

Mission Impossible: Impossible Pie

The evening started out on a bad note, BART was delayed due to a protest at one of the stations and the kids and I ended up getting home later than planned. This is often the kiss of death for any meal that I have planned because if I get in that door late - even with a husband that will play with the kids and distract them from the kitchen - things go downhill fast. Not only was I on single parent duty that night, but I was late getting home! I soldiered on because there is nothing like a childhood craving to make me dig in my heels a little harder to get what I want.

I have no idea what made me suddenly want an Impossible Pie, but boy did I want one. The Impossible Pie was on heavy dinner rotation in my house growing up and I loved them all. I am sure my mother loved them because it was a throw together sort of dish - take your leftovers, add some cheese to it, put it in a greased pie dish, and pour Bisquick and eggs over the filling and dinner is done. I can even remember the white Pyrex pie plate coming out of the oven and wondering which delicious cheesy filling my mom had chosen for dinner that night.

A little history on how the Impossible Pie came to be. In 1981 the Bisquick company celebrated their 50th anniversary by publishing a cookbook of old and new recipes, including "a pie that did the impossible - formed its own crust as it baked." 

The Impossible Coconut Pie and Impossible Bacon Pie were the first recipes published in that book and homemakers across America quickly adapted the recipe to fit what their families would eat and sent in their recipes (with over 100 varieties!) to the Bisquick company for publication. And this was before the Internet, people! These industrious folks snail-mailed their own variations on the recipe to the company. Now we just blog about it. Crazy. The Bisquick company published these booklets for sale at grocery stores. My mom picked one up during a shopping trip and a regular rotation dish was born in our house.

So flash forward 30 years and there I was craving an Impossible Pie. I walked in the front door at 6:15 PM, flicked the oven on to 400 degrees and quickly got to work. Instead of using Bisquick, I subbed in Trader Joe's Multigrain Baking & Pancake Mix, the measurements from Bisquick to TJ's mix are exact. I mixed in a  combination of Gruyère and Monterey Jack cheeses, leftover chopped chicken and some left over steamed broccoli. I poured the TJ's mix over the filling and popped it in the oven for 30 minutes as promised. I served this alongside a small salad of avocado with cherry tomatoes. The kids loved it. And here I was thinking that they would just push it aside, but they both ate decent portions and I just sat there marveling how just one bite of that pie could transport me back to my childhood kitchen on Shawnee Lane, watching my mom bop around the kitchen while singing along to Alicia Bridges' "I Love the Nightlife" on the record player.

Thanks for the memories, Impossible Pie.

The 15 Minute Wonder Soup

My husband IMd me at 3:30 during the workday to say that he wanted to play tennis tonight. This notice came at a critical juncture for me in the day when I'm approaching fight or flight. I had a dinner plan for the week, but no way was I going to attempt chicken with a tomato marscapone sauce on SPOD (Single Parent on Duty) Night. I had to change my plan and quickly. I did a mental tally of the contents of my freezer: Frozen pizza, homemade tomato sauce and frozen cheese tortellini. Then I remembered that my five year old was coming down with a cold and it hit me - soup! I needed to make soup for my child, even though I don't have time to chop and dice and sautee. Impossible. Then I remembered 'Avgolemono' which is Greek for "Super Fast Soup."

I came into the door from work with two kids in tow at 6 pm. I set up the five year old at the table with his homework, got the toddler interested in some crayons and some paper (if she ate the crayons, I will never know) and got to work. I defrosted (nuked for 1 minute) some bread I had in the freezer (Costco bread freezes incredibly well), wrapped it in foil and stuck it in the toaster oven at 500 degrees. As it came time to incorporate the eggs into the broth, my toddler started to ram her baby stroller into my legs and my 5 year old is asking me difficult questions from his homework like "What comes after 23?" I pleasantly ask my daughter to stop hurting me and answer "24... I think?" and I whisk the soup into creamy submission and add some salt and pepper and taste it... sweet god,where has this soup been all my life? Delicious! I throw in some leftover chicken from the weekend, get the bread out of the toaster oven, slice it and throw it all on the table as my 5 year old finishes his homework. My son ate it, my toddler gulped it down and I had to resist eating my husband's portion.

I love nights like this where a plan comes together. I felt like MacGyver with my Time for Dinner cookbook! I made a healthy and nutritious meal out of what felt like nothing and I didn't even have to break open the frozen pizza box.

Back to our regularly scheduled menu tomorrow night, barring any last minute schedule changes.