In the thick of unpacking, I discovered it's not all too hard to be a good cook.
The thing about getting married, you get a ton of awesome presents that aren't necessarily useful immediately, but you know will come in handy in a short amount of time. Like the hot chocolate maker. We didn't have hot chocolate today, but believe you me, it's only a matter of time.
We got a slough of presents related to kitchen activities, and I spent the morning trying to figure out where the heck I'm going to fit a blender, a hot chocolate maker, 3 cake plates, a kitchen aide, a cheese plate, a chip-dip platter, a fondu melter that came with the crock pot, the crock pot, a lemonade dispenser, a waffle iron, and a cast iron skillet that rivals Thor's hammer for liftability. I finally remembered that I have a massive pantry, so stuff I won't be using in the near future - like the cheese plate and that ridiculous skillet - can get tucked safely away where they are easily accessible should I ever need them, but very much out of the way for now.
Then I decided I didn't like where we were keeping the cups, bowls and plates, and moved them all.
But the real point is that I now own a crock pot. The person who got me that is getting a fantastic thank you note, because dinner just became a piece of cake.
No, not a literal piece of cake. That has nothing to do with a crock pot.
Though I have had a piece of cake for dinner before.
Yeah.
Moving on.
Anyway, tonight we had barbecue chicken for dinner. I threw 3 chicken breasts in the pot, dumped a butt-load of barbecue sauce on top, and because that seemed too easy, I cut up some onions and added those. Then... oh, the agony of crock pot cooking... I did the most difficult part of the ordeal. I turned the crock pot on. Yes, that's right. The hardest part was figuring out which button to push.
4 hours later we were eating dinner.
I've been a little resistant to the whole becoming domestic thing. I mean, I like cooking and all, but I hate coming up with what to cook. What's for dinner? I dunno. You tell me, and if it sounds like fun, I'll cook it. In the past, I've only ever had myself to cook for, so stuffing burritos were a frequent occurrence. Now, well, meals are a family thing.
As for my being the only cook... I'm not. Carl makes killer lasagna. And we kinda agreed (and by "kinda agreed," I mean, "I said and he didn't object,") that while we're both working full time to support our family, we're evenly splitting the domestic responsibilities as well.
"Evenly splitting" hasn't been fully defined. We both cook. We both do the dishes. He takes out the trash. Whatever the domestic parameters, it means I still have to cook once in a while.
But hey! Now I have a crock pot! I can cook!
And tonight, I feel proud of my domestic skills.
Because the crock pot was too easy.
Far too easy.
So I sauteed some onions, fried some potatoes, covered the lot with seasoned salt and added a side dish to the barbecue chicken.
That's right. Main dish AND a side.
And he took the leftovers to work with him. That's not just success. That's victory.
