Cooking away the grief

Vigil in Parkland, Florida

When my mother’s first husband, my brother’s father, lay dying from a WWI wound, my mother was in the kitchen baking a chocolate cake—her way of dealing with overwhelming grief. At least, that’s the story I’ve always been told. I’m my mother’s daughter, because this weekend I took my small part of the national grief over the Parkland shootings to the kitchen. No, it didn’t make things any better or the grief any less, but it kept me occupied.

Friday night with guests for supper I made the easiest chicken and rice dish ever—recipe below. My guests raved about it, and I have two and a half chicken tenders left, which I intend to use for a chicken salad lunch tomorrow.

Saturday was all about food. Jordan and I mixed our signals—I thought we were eating together Thursday night with Christian busy, so I suggested mushrooms on toast. She turned out to have plans but got the mushrooms anyway, and then began to say “You better cook those.” So my decadent Saturday lunch was mushrooms on toast. I saved enough mushrooms to go with our roast tonight—only Jordan and I eat them. Saturday night I made myself ham patties—an experiment but so easy and so good. That recipe as well as the chicken one will go in my cookbook.

After church today we went to Pearl Snap, a kolache shop that was closing as we got there but let us in. I had been counting on a ham pattie for lunch and went reluctantly, but the bread part of the kolache tasted exactly like my mom’s dinner rolls. Nostalgia! I still came home and ate one pattie to see how they held up. Good.

Tonight, is a big deal, an experiment. I had toyed with the idea of getting an InstaPot but decided against it—I have no room, and I certainly have the time for long, slow cooking. But my brother, having gotten one for his wife, his daughter, and his son, decided I had to have one. I have to admit right here that he also got me a bidet over my objections—and I love it!

We solved the space problem rather easily. The InstaPot lives on the low-down shelf in my butcher-block cutting board. When I want to use it, it trades places with my induction hot plate. The learning curve was another matter. I gave Christian all the instructions this afternoon, including a recipe for roast with potatoes and carrots. We started at 5:45; we ate dinner at 8:45. That 55-minute roast took a tad longer than we anticipated. The InstaPot was not instant.

Christian cooking

We had accounted for it being a trial run which would go a bit slow. We had not accounted for the test run, the sauté cycle, the vegetable cycle, and the reduction sauce. By the time we ate we were ravenous and all a bit cranky. But the carrots were delicious, the potatoes nice and soft, the sauce or gravy wonderful! The meat was flavorful and tender enough though it could have been a bit more so. For a first time, it was a pretty darn good meal.

Confession: Christian did it all, with me watching closely. I’m not sure I’m ready to cook a meal, but I sure learned a lot. I need recipes to choose from and will work on that. One of my neighbors is in love with her InstaPot and stands ready to help. Maybe next Sunday’s dinner.

Meantime, I’m exhausted, maybe from a bit of extra wine while we waited for dinner, maybe from hunger, maybe from a long day. ‘Night all. Sweet dreams. I feel it in my bones—good times are coming. I’m almost but not quite ready to break out a chorus of “Happy Days are Here Again!”

That chicken recipe:

Our InstaPot dinner

1 box Uncle Ben’s Original Wild Rice, Fast Cooking if you can’t find Original

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can cream of celery soup

1 lb. chicken tenders.

Mix rice and seasonings thoroughly with the two soups. Put in oven-proof dish (I used one that fit in my toaster oven). Salt and pepper chicken tenders and lay on top of the rice mixture. Cover dish tightly with foil. Bake two-and-a-half hours at 275. No peeking or you’ll ruin it.