Cooking School Week 3

...aka Not Our Best Effort. This week was honey mustard chicken and pasta, cheese, and trees (pasta and broccoli). Lucy made the honey mustard sauce for the chicken. We followed the recipe exactly, but when we served it, Darren's comment was, "Chewy." I guess chicken only works for me in the crockpot for some reason. The sauce was good though.



Here's Lucy with the pasta, trees, and cheese. Between you and me and the Internet, it was pretty bland. However, the girls loved it. Elaine ate three helpings. So, if you're looking for ways to get your kids to eat their broccoli, this is a good one.



Dessert was the biggest success (surprise): key lime pie (we topped it with Cool Whip to serve).



All the cooking must have tired Lucy out. After dinner, Darren gave the girls their bath and got them ready for bed. I heard them reading "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile" together, then after awhile all was silent. At about 7:30 I went up to see what was going on, and the three of them were flopped across our bed. Darren and Lucy were asleep, and Elaine was lying there, staring silently at the ceiling and probably planning what dastardly deeds she'll be doing today.

This morning I decided to rise at the crack of dawn with them since I have to go get the reimbursement check for the damages to my car. The place is called CrashOne. That doesn't really inspire a lot of confidence in me, but as long as I get the money, I guess it's OK.

Since we were up so early, we decided to make muffins for breakfast. I gave Elaine the job of putting the muffin cups in the tin, and she did it well.


(Note the magic wand lying on the counter. Probably the same one I got clunked on the head with.)

We made apple cinnamon muffins, using a mix. Back when I was married only a year or so, one fall I went on huge muffin baking kick. I looked up recipes and clipped them out of the newspaper and each weekend made a new batch of muffins for my family to try. They were all too tasteless, too dry, too crumbly...just not right. One batch my mom tried to find the nicest thing she could say about them. "Your aunt and uncle would LOVE these!" Nice try, Mom, seeing as they are health fanatics and like to eat bread that tastes like brown paper towels.

Then one week I decided to play a little trick. I bought a muffin mix, whipped those up, and presented them as my latest recipe. Everyone raved. I had finally hit on the best muffins ever! These were delicious! Where did I find this recipe?!

So, your lessons for today are: cook chicken in the crockpot; Cool Whip makes everything taste better; and always use muffin mix.

Don't say you've never learned anything here.