Of course he was not back. I called from the parking lot of 10Box before I left, to say I'd be home in 10 minutes. He was not even to Sis-Town yet.
"I should be there pretty soon. Just leave it in the car. That won't hurt it. I'll bring it in when I get there. It ain't but 40-somthing degrees."
"It's 52, and I have your ice cream and hamburger."
"Well. You could just take the ice cream."
Which is what I did. I also had some cheese. Can't remember what else cold. And two bags with cans for making chili after our beans were gone. But I didn't want to carry in four pounds of hamburger. That's heavy for someone who can't walk without grabbing onto stuff for balance.
I got home and took in Farmer H's precious Drumsticks. I thought he'd be there in about 10-15 minutes. I went ahead and changed clothes. Got the beans out of FRIG II to start warming. It actually took Farmer H 25 minutes, because he made another stop. A story which will probably appear on my not-so-secret blog. Anyhoo... I was coming out of the bathroom in my comfy clothes when I hear Farmer H putting the groceries down on the cutting block.
"I don't need all these cans here! Just set the bags along the wall, on the floor. I'll be using them tomorrow morning when I make the chili."
He did, and I put other things away. Like the bread and bananas and cheese and oatmeal and protein bars. Something was missing.
"Where's the hamburger?"
"HAMBURGER? I didn't see no hamburger."
"It was in a bag on the back seat. Right by the bags with the cheese and the oatmeal."
"Huh. I guess I'll go out and look..."
Yeah. He came back with the four-pound tray of hamburger. Good thing I noticed. But that's not the only issue with the hamburger. Bear with the roundabout tale that brought my rage to a simmer...
That's not hamburger. That's beans. The last of the beans. And a pan of juice. You'll understand their significant contribution to my building simmer.
"The beans are warm. This is the last of them. Make sure you leave me half. Because the past two nights, you've had beans stacked about two inches above the rim of the bowl!"
"I did not! I had a corn muffin broken up in the bottom of the bowl."
"I know that. But it wouldn't give you a towering pile of beans in the middle of your bowl."
"You said I could have what I wanted. That you like the juice."
"I DO like the juice. And I said I could get more beans out of the big pan. Which I did. But this is all that's left. I don't want just juice."
"Look. I've got juice!"
"Yes. But that's also a lot of beans. And you're still dipping. I don't care if you have NO juice. Just leave me half the beans."
"I am. There's a whole bowl of beans in there for you."
"We'll see when I'm ready to eat."
Just as I suspected, when I dipped out my beans, there was barely half a bowl. Sure, I had juice to add. But as for beans, just a half bowl. The simmer was about to grow to a roiling boil the next evening, when Farmer H dipped his chili.
Once again, he had a towering bowl of chili. I had browned 2/3 of that 4-pound pack of hamburger to add to six cans of assorted beans in the chili. I daresay that if I'd set out the big pot to warm up, Farmer H would have had all the hamburger in his bowl.
A disagreement ensued, and the next night, I was in sole charge of dishing up the chili. Sometimes, you gotta look out for yourself before you reach the boiling point.
Last Wednesday, I wanted to make an easy chicken vegetable soup. I diced up some chicken breast and cooked it with some onion, celery and garlic. After it was cooked, I removed it from the pot and added some chicken broth and put in a handful of small potatoes that I peeled and diced and then threw in 2 bags of Birds Eye frozen mixed vegetables. (I do not like mixed vegetables. My husband substituted (for corn and green beans that I had on the list, and the store didn't have) to get the gas points, which was fine.) I had googled if I could cook down the frozen veggies etc. and then take the stick blender to them and pulverize them into the broth, which I did. (more or less - there were a few bits that were missed) It turned out okay although I would not recommend. Weirdly enough, my husband liked it. There was enough for 2 meals and then a bowl leftover. On the second meal, he said he got a lot more chicken. I told him it was the luck of the draw and the choice of the soup ladle. When he showed me, I think he got over a third of the amount of chicken I started with originally. So, I can't blame him for getting much of the chicken. It was the luck of the draw. LOL (BTW, I can't manage to calculate half of anything I cook, via eyesight. If I ever were to be more accurate, I would literally have to measure it out. It never fails.) Ranee PS-the reason I wouldn't recommend the use of pulverizing the frozen veg in the soup is because either the corn or green beans generated an occasional tiny bit of skin that I didn't care for as I am a texture eater and some texture is a turn off despite taste. In this case, the soup did taste really good, but that occasional skin bit was a bit of a turn off for me. My husband is clearly more tolerable of textured items than I am.
ReplyDeleteRae,
DeleteThe Pony is like that about textures. I wouldn't have minded the "skin," since the beans also do that and it doesn't bother me. I tried frozen veggies once in my vegetable beef soup, and won't do it again. The frozen cubed hash brown potatoes were fine. But the crinkle-cut carrot coins never did soften up. I don't like crunchy soup! Maybe that's MY textural issue. I only used them because I couldn't find the canned version.
I think you should be in sole charge of dishing up ALWAYS, did you show Farmer H the measly amount of beans he left for you? I would have.
ReplyDeleteRiver,
DeleteI DID! In fact, I told him I was going to take a picture when I dished mine up. I showed him the next day, and he said, "I told you there was a bowl of beans left for you." Ignoring that I had evidence of just a HALF bowl of beans.