- Jay and I have been talking about eating better - and failing miserably at it.
- I have been trying to plan meals in advance so I know what's for dinner - and failing miserably at it.
Last night, I stopped at one of those "meals ready to go" places and found that at $6 per serving of chicken enchiladas and $10 for a quart of creamy tortilla soup, a $28 meal that I still needed to heat up wasn't any better than going out to eat. I decided to stop at the grocery and pick up "something quick." On the way, I thought about some great blackberry jam my sister made and thought about the chicken I have sitting in the fridge. I also thought about a strawberry spinach feta salad that I like, and all three thoughts kind of jumped into a pool and got mixed together. I thought, OH, I'll make a little blackberry marinade/dressing, grill the chicken and add that to a salad - put a little cheese, chicken and blackberries together and that will be great. Then, the comedy of errors begins.
First, the store is out of blackberries but has blueberries on sale. (canceled out by what I spent on the blueberry jam I didn't have, but whatever)
Then, there is no spinach bagged salad, and, given that it is past 6 by now, I want the pre-made stuff, so I get mixed greens - which turn out to be mostly bitter.
Finally, what I put in the microwave to thaw is not chicken, it's pork chops - due to no labeling and even poorer storage.
The salad dressing/marinade I make is actually pretty tasty. It caramelizes nicely on the pork chops on the grill, and I go for it. The whole thing comes together in like twenty minutes. This is where I make the fatal mistake.
I COULD have plated the whole thing like this:
Pork Chop, steamed broccoli on a plate,
salad with blueberries, feta, dressing in a separate bowl.
BUT I'm tired of broccoli, didn't want to do separate dishes and was feeling "creative" so I chopped up a pork chop, added it to the salad, put it all in soup bowls and sat it on the table like I meant it.
Everyone sits down.
Jay asks "Did you make your own dressing?" "It's good," he adds hastily.
"What's it called?" says Simon.
"I just kind of made it up," I say.
"Hmm. I think we should call it Blueberry Nastiness," says the kiddo, "it's awful."
Jay starts to reprimand him and CANNOT STOP LAUGHING. He just sits there and shakes quietly. Laughing. And laughing.
It's a full thirty seconds of silent shaking before he finally says "I don't think you thought very much about how that would make your mom feel before you said that."
