I cook for the sole reason that my family has to eat something and oh shoot, the budget just doesn’t allow for take out for every single meal. Darn! You may have read about my misadventure a few weeks ago when there was a small incident with some flames in the kitchen. For some, this might have justified sealing off the oven, but this Mom of the Year pressed on undaunted. Bring it on, I say. In fact, if I survived one bout with setting dinner on fire, I think I will just now be more adept at handling it the next time it happens (because it is safely assumed that it will happen again).
Flames aside, it’s possible that I may have some other issues in the kitchen. As in, I have no idea what I’m doing. I find most recipes to be overwhelming. So it probably wasn’t a super-wise move a couple of days ago when I decided to tackle a new multi-layered recipe on an evening when my husband was coming home really late. Trying to feed and bathe the children myself while tackling this beast lead to more than a little frustrated screaming and crying. The children were cranky too.
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| Source She looks so sweet; not at all the classic profile of someone who would try to maliciously destroy my evening with a chicken dish… |
I saw Sherri Shepard’s recipe for Chicken Divan in Parade Magazine and thought, “Why not? I like her. She does a really good job playing an illogical crazed woman as Tracy Jordan’s wife on 30 Rock, so obviously I want to make something she suggests.” Her words at the beginning of the article should have tipped me off, “I like to make a nice, simple chicken divan.” Anytime a recipe is referred to as “simple”, this translates into “you will dedicate 3 hours of your evening making this and cleaning up the subsequent 16 dirty pots and pans afterwards.”
It was the kind of thing that by the time I realized what a commitment it was truly going to be, I was already too far into it to turn around. I was already whipping the cream, for pity’s sake (who makes this part of a dinner recipe, seriously?!). Granted, I’m sure most people could have aced this dish with extreme ease, but again, let me clarify: I am not a smooth operator in the kitchen.
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Long story short, after throwing in a perhaps very sizeable glass of wine to numb some of the chaos of the evening, it turns out that the Chicken Divan was indeed divine. So if you’re looking for a recipe from this oh-so savvy-in-the-kitchen blogger, check it out here. Just be sure to throw in the extra ingredient of having another adult on hand to wrangle the children’s bathtime and you should be good to go ;)
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