Mayday Maday - Mom Is Cooking!!

My 7-year-old daughter reported in sick today.

My first thought (besides making her comfortable) was woohoo!  No school!  Yep - I think I'm happier than the kids.  Is that possible?

I can do this and that and the other thing I've been putting off for months!

One thing I wanted to try was making homemade potato soup.  My Betty Crocker cookbook has it marked as a "Fast" recipe.

Let me tell you what.

Between my sick child's needs, which she bellows through a megaphone so I can hear her from the living room and tend to her every need, my three-year-old's shenanigans, the phone ringing (no, I don't have time to talk to the dentist's office), and my four-year-old's desire to make a separate recipe at the same time, things went crazy!!  I just wanted some homemade potato soup.  I will not pretend that I was making the soup for my sick child, because I knew before I made it that she would never eat it.  I live in a house full of picky eaters.

My preschoolers freely spouted off "Eew, yuck!" and "What is that stinky smell?" when they would pass by me to see what I was doing.  Sigh.

So, I chopped up the potatoes while my four-year-old measured the oatmeal for her easy granola recipe.  Then I melted the butter, which she poured into the crockpot and stirred while I cut up onions and threw them in the boiling pot of potatoes.  Next came measuring 2/3 cup of honey.  I think my Kylie could have tried squeezing that much honey through the top of the honey bear lid for 1/2 hour, but I had mercy on her and took the lid off, letting her pour it into the measuring cup in big, amber globs.  We took turns pouring honey over the oatmeal and stirring it all up, then I put the lid on and plugged the crockpot in.  Set on low.

We're lucky I didn't put onions in the granola.

A half hour had passed.

OK, so what does the soup recipe say?  Drain the vegetables and put them in the blender?  Oh no.  You are kidding yourself if you think I'm getting the blender out, Betty Crocker.  I'll just mash up the veggies with a fork or something.  Reading further, I discovered this was impossible, so I broke down and got out the blender.  The veggie mixture blended into a creamy consistency, while I melted butter in the newly empty, still hot pan.  Tablespoon flour?  Ok.  Now refer to alternate spices in number 3.  What?  Hey - the butter's burning here.  And I'm doing a Choose-Your-Own-Adventures thing with this recipe.  Yoi!

So ok - add salt, pepper, and basil.  Basil?  I sped over to my choose-a-spice rack we received as a wedding present 11 years ago...do spices go bad?  They're dried, right?  They should be fine.  Measured the 1/4 tsp. with a tablespoon and whisked the contents of the pan around.  Add 1 cup milk.  Got it!  Let my 4 year old who is begging to help stir the pot (don't touch the pan and don't touch the stove - they are very hot and will burn you) while I start clearing the table for lunch, which will be an hour late.  Put the reserved veggies in the pan and some more broth.  Got it.  When do I put my veggie smoothie in?  Where in the directions is this addressed?  HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN THE PUREED VEGGIES I DIRTIED MY BLENDER FOR?  Double Yoi!  Oh - there it is.  Add it now, and stir it in.

Heat through and serve.

There.  That was easy.  All that effort produced 4 servings of soup.  FOUR.

An hour has passed.  My sink is full of dirty dishes once again (I just washed all of them prior to my brilliant foray into Martha Stewart's world of cooking fun), my energy is sapped.  It may have something to do with my 3-year-old waking me up at 6 a.m., but that's beside the point.

So, again I refer to the "Easy" rating on the recipe.

Ha!

The soup was good.  I added broccoli and bacon and enjoyed my slaved-over bowl of soup while my kids munched their regular pb&j's, veggie chips and apple slices.

I am going to take a well-deserved nap.

And never try that again.

Two hours later:

Slept too long.  Burnt the super-easy crock-pot granola.  Oh well - I salvaged the granola from the middle of the pot.

That part looks good...

And so ends our foray into the wonderful world of cooking.  For the year.