Two nights in my kitchen

Oh, readers.

As many of you know, the road to my kitchen is paved with good intentions, tears and the smell of burning.

(I promise I will share the pesto story soon, Metacognitive Musings.)

So when I announced last week that I intended to make something with artichokes over the weekend, I absolutely intended to do that. And you responded with encouragement and some truly amazing- and scary-looking recipes, most of which required me to work with actual, whole artichokes.

Friends, I'm a wuss.

So my first confession is that I drifted RIGHT by the produce section and snagged a jar of marinated artichoke hearts. But even if it's cheating, I'm still trying something new, right?

And then I found this recipe on CookingLight.com:

And I thought, "Perfect! It sounds easy, it includes nothing but things I like, it's relatively healthy..."

So. Sunday was the day. We spent the morning and early afternoon lounging around, then at 6:30 (when it finally dropped below 90 degrees) I realized my flowerbeds were in desperate need of weeding... Two and a half hours later, dirty and exhausted, I realized I didn't have any feta cheese. So I collapsed on the floor and whined until T made me a Lean Cuisine.

Yesterday at work, I felt guilty all day. Here I promised all two of you who read this blog a triumphant recipe reveal! So I left work, hit Le Krog and snagged the requisite feta.

And it was ON.

Then I realized, as I do EVERY TIME I COOK ANYTHING, that I was still missing a few things because I hadn't read the recipe closely enough:

• Israeli couscous (substitute: regular old Near East couscous; this one wasn't as tragic, as the larger Israeli couscous looked like dried tapioca and/or fish eggs and kind of creeped me out)
• Vegetable broth (substitute: chicken broth; there's already chicken in it, no bigs, right?)
• Two jars of artichoke hearts (substitute: one jar of artichoke hearts; I briefly considered halving the entire recipe, but then I remembered who I was and that this would involve math)
• Not onions (substitute: onions; for some reason I thought there were onions in this recipe, and then I didn't want to waste the ones T had already lovingly chopped for me)

It all looked so innocent, just sitting there on my counter:


Something else I didn't anticipate -- sundried tomatoes need to be rehydrated. If you think this should be a no-brainer, you're probably right -- especially because it's STEP ONE OF THE RECIPE I had sitting RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. I somehow missed it and had to stop sauteing the onions.

Yes, I sauteed the onions that weren't supposed to be there. And then, in a fit of inspiration (otherwise known as "where things usually go awry"), I sauteed them and the chicken in the marinade from the jar of artichoke hearts, chopped up the hearts themselves and threw them in the pan for good measure. Sure! Why not?

So. Tomatoes: Rehydrated. Parsley: Harvested from my herb garden (yay!) and chopped. Onions, artichokes and chicken: Sauteed, apparently. Couscous: Couscoused. Feta: Feta-y.

Mix all, say a little prayer and serve:


T came to the table while I was eating (he would eat NOTHING in this recipe except maybe the chicken and onions):

T: "So? Good?" (He's a man of few words.)

WP: "The fact that I'm eating it with a serving spoon should tell you all you need to know."

It was, in fact, sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good.

For once, my kitchen "innovation" (and apparent lack of attention to detail) paid off!

Next up (well, sometime): WP tries to stuff...something. Probably chicken breasts. Stay tuned. I'm sure it'll be a disaster.