Another one of my Favorite Things...COOKING!

I wasn't sure I even had anything to write about tonight but I have made Tuesday nights my Blogging night so when I looked at my list of my favorite things I saw COOKING on there. It seems very appropriate to write about this since I watched my niece, Jyll, compete on Food Network Star this past Sunday night. It was fun to be at her Premiere Party and to hear her commentaries that went on behind the scenes. She didn't know how it would be edited so it was fun to hear the inside scoop. It was so much fun to see her on the show and to think this is on national tv! What an experience! On one hand I think it would be a blast to be a part of something like that but after hearing Jyll talk about it, I'm glad it's her competing! She has the personality but I think after the first show Jyll appears to be much "too nice." I hope after her experience with Howie and how she wanted to be a "team player" that she learned you have to take care of your part first then if there is time you can help out the others. This isn't the norm I'm sure for Jyll but this is clearly a competition and you do what you have to do. I am so glad the air was cleared though and the truth came out as to how much Jyll did to help out Howie but was so sad she wasn't able to plate her food in the team effort. I do hope Jyll has her opportunity to truly shine in future episodes! I can't even imagine all that she went through although right now she can't really divulge too much. I so much enjoyed watching all the dishes being prepared and it has inspired me to want to do more cooking.

I have been in my own competition that has actually been going on for some time. My competition has been in getting organization to my home. I am fully convinced when you run a family you need a third adult in the mix. I can see where it may be a help for a husband to have more than one wife. A man could use a wife to clean up after himself. Another for raising the children. Another for doing the regular household chores. One that cooks wonderfully! Then another for the, let's say it in a PG form, for doing "the marriage act." But alas in our day and time for a man to have more than one wife is rather looked down upon. So here we are as the wives that we are and we do all of these things listed above. As the saying goes, "man cannot serve two masters" you can relate this to being divided if one works outside the home and tried to keep up with everything at home. One area will suffer. I believe women may excel in one area and fall short in other areas. I believe I did a good job and am doing a good job raising my kids, I am a good cook...just look at the husband. Where I fall short is in the area of "keeping house." I have had help in years past while the kids were young. I am a firm believer also that a family should have "servant/s". When I read Proverbs 31:15 She gets up while it is still night; she provides food for her family and portions for her female servants. Look at those last words, "and portions for her "female servants." If we strive to be The Proverbs 31 Woman we should have servants in the home.

Granted I could get into how we do have these "servants" with the dishwashers, washers and dryers that were invented to ease our load. It was always my hope that these children I gave birth to would grow up and "be helpful" around the house with some of these basic chores. They did their share but as they grew older they outgrew some of the basic chores. At 16 we relied on them noticing when something needed to be cleaned up and would do it on their own. Well, that didn't exactly happen. The basic chores did fall on the younger ones and we reorganized the charts but the kids kept growing older and before I knew it I was left with one child under the age of 16 who in no way would be able to keep up with ALL the basic chores. With having some children move back home they noticed the upkeep that the house needed and would freely give their "advice" as to how it should be handled fully knowing that I didn't NEED their advice. What I needed was action on their part. One said he would be willing to help out in order to not have to pay "rent". Rent...oh now there is another issue to be dealt with but will have to blog about that another time. So this "said" adult child offered his help but it didn't last. Now I have the second adult child who we have had a bit more success having his help. He is the "third" adult in the home that we needed to make headway in getting organization around here. His goal this week was to "uncover" the dining room table. I can't tell you how many times over the years I have tried to tackle this one. It's always been one of those "Catch 22" scenarios. You clean one area only to find you have to clean other areas to make the room to put the things away from the first area and so on.

Well, today was the day the dining table was done and ready to have a family dinner around. FINALLY I could do some REAL COOKING! It was around noon when the table was ready so I hunted through my freezer to see what I could cook up.

I found a chuck roast, I won't even get into the date it was purchased. I took it out and put it in the microwave to defrost. Usually with a roast I use onion soup mix sprinkled all over with a little bit of water and cook it in the crockpot and it comes out so moist. I didn't have enough time to cook it in a crockpot so my only option was to put it in the oven. 300 degrees for 4 hours. I didn't have the onion soup mix so I used some dry beef bullion with onion powder, salt and pepper then sprinkled dry dill weed all over. Wrapped it up in foil and put it in to cook. In a few hours the heavenly smell was permeating throughout the house! The house hasn't smelled that good in a long time! It was a wonderful feeling to be cooking again. Not that I haven't been cooking but this time I knew I was cooking a meal that we would be sitting down to at our dining room table. I haven't felt this anxious to cook in years! If I had a bag of potatoes I would have made homemade mashed potatoes but I opted for box potatoes. I did peel carrots and made candied carrots. I had bought two bags of carrots thinking they were each a pound but when I saw how few carrots were in the pan I realized those were 12oz bags. I had picked up a bag of salad mix. God bless the company that came up with that idea! Salads are probably one of the few things I don't care to make. This made for a very nice meal for dinner time.


At 6pm I received a call from my dear husband who gave me the news that he was going to work another hour. I should have known it would happen since he was taking the next 3 days off work. So I turned everything off and took the meat out of the oven. Good thing I did that! Turns out the way I wrapped the meat in foil it didn't hold any of the juices in so my chuck roast was as dry as could be. I thought there goes my gravy. I remembered seeing in the recipe book how to make gravy from pan drippings which was about all I had left. I heated up half a cup of water and poured it into the pan and started stirring it to melt what it could of the pan drippings. I ended up with half a cup so I could make gravy. It turned out great! So there was gravy for the mashed potatoes and to pour over the dry meat! Thank you Lord!

I had a wonderful feeling of "success" putting all the dishes on the table for dinner. I may never compete on TV for my own show but when I can take meat that has been in the freezer for nearly a year and even though the juices all dried up I was able to come up with other options and make it work. Rachael Rae, Bobby Flay...eat your heart out! This girl is COOKING!