Oh, wow Stephanie! That's gonna be crazy!
Ok...story...
The Best Kind of Ruined Dinner
My immediate family is currently in Lawrence, Kansas to celebrate Thanksgiving, and even more importantly, meet the newest member of the family--my one-month-old nephew, Cooper. We have been having a wonderful week. We are relaxing and helping my brother’s family when we can. One of the ways I decided I could help was by grocery shopping and cooking the main meals, partly so we weren’t eating out for every meal, which gets very expensive when you have six people. So, mom and I created a menu and went grocery shopping on Sunday, prepared to cook until Thanksgiving Day, which we would grocery shop for later.
Well, that “later” came yesterday. During a yummy lunch of taco salad we all prepared the menu for the feast that would be Thanksgiving dinner. After creating the grocery list, mom, dad, and I headed out. We dropped mom off to get her nails done, and dad and I went and wowed the other shoppers with our shopping skills. We were so organized that it was almost hysterical. We got done shopping, put the groceries put in the car, and drove back across the street to pick up mom, but she wasn’t ready yet. As a matter of fact, she still had quite a bit of the process to go, so I decided to get my nails done as well.
When we finally finished getting our gorgeous new nails, we all ran over to the cottage where we are staying to drop off a bunch of the groceries that we didn’t need right away (there is only so much room in one refrigerator!). By the time we were heading back to my brother and sister-in-law’s house, my youngest brother called to make sure we were okay. We had been gone quite a while--quite a bit longer than we had anticipated.
We got the rest of the groceries put away, and I had to finish a paper I was writing. I sat down to work on it, realized the time and started to panic. I was supposed to cook dinner, and I just couldn’t see how I was going to get that done as well as my paper. So, mom offered to help. I was supposed to be making my famous roasted chickens, roasted fall vegetables, and mom made a yummy harvest salad. I told mom what she needed to do, got out the seasonings I usually use, set the oven to preheat, and went back to my paper. About 30 to 45 minutes later, mom suggested we put the veggies in the oven. I hadn’t realized how much time had passed. So, we put in the first pan of veggies and took the foil off of the chickens so they would brown nicely.
Thirty minutes later we checked everything. The veggies were still a little hard, and the chickens were still pretty white, so we left them in and checked them about every 15 minutes. The veggies came out, and I checked the temperature of the chickens. They were nowhere near done. I went to set the table, and it dawned on me. I had forgotten a fairly important step. You’re supposed to roast them at 425°F for the first half hour then turn the oven down to 350°F. Oops. Big oops.
So, we turned the oven up, and I suggested that we start dinner with the lovely salad mom had made. We ate the salad and chatted a bit, and I went to check the chickens. They were looking better, but when I cut into it, mom and I realized right away that they were still nowhere near being done. My brother suggested that we microwave it for a bit. So, into the microwave went one of the chickens. Five minutes later we cut into it. STILL not cooked. By this point, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I had almost cried earlier, but this seemed to be the time to start laughing. And laughing some more. I went to the refrigerator, pulled out bread, mayonnaise, lunch meat, and cheese and took them to the table announcing, “Change of plans!”
I came back into the kitchen to help mom put the chicken back in the pan to go back in the oven. I started laughing, almost hysterically, and heard everyone else laughing too. My brother had announced in his best maitre de voice, “The chef regrets to announce that we are out of the roast chicken and suggests our world-famous ham (continued...)