The Epic Adventure: March Madness!! Cooking! A cut finger!

Any of you who don't know what I'm doing (perhaps new visitors... I don't know. I guess it's possible that I have them.), I'll give you a quick update: March is National Craft Month. I've set out to do one complete craft project for every day of March.

I thought this would be easy. I spend time every day crafting, right? Well, the truth is, as I was surprised to realize, I actually don't. As much as I talk about it and as much as it really seems to be a huge part of my life, there are days when I don't touch my creative stuff. This mission has forced me to really look at my days and plan them well and get my crafting done while at the same time not allowing my house to fall apart. The kitchen was clean yesterday. I'm semi-caught-up-ish on my laundry (which doesn't sound too good, but considering that this chore and I go together about as well as a skittish cat and an ice water bath, this is actually a remarkable statement), and I was all in line to keep going on my mission.

I've even discovered, by God's amazing grace and provision, Jacques Pepin. Mainly the PBS series "More Fast Food My Way" for which there is a companion cookbook. I got that, and the cookbook for his first series "Fast Food My Way". This has enabled me for the past two nights to get a gloriously beautiful dinner on my table with less than 30 minutes of work, but it looks way fancier. I highly recommend both the show and the books. His stuff is amazing and amazingly good!

Enter last night... My son (the 9 year old, Thad) had a concert at school. We got home at about 7:30. By just after 8, we were eating beautiful pan seared chicken breast with a delicious balsamic vinegar sauce, baked (in the microwave) golden potatoes, and grapes. All served with butter, kosher salt, multi colored ground pepper, and shredded Parmesan cheese (from a block of cheese, not the shaker bottle), and a freshly brewed pot of tea. Even Elliott (the 3 year old who is most usually on a hunger strike at dinner) asked for more. Three times.

In between 7:30 and 8:00, however, as I was in a rush, washing the cutting board and wicked Kuhn Rikon chef's knife (wicked awesome and just a bit wicked evil, but it's not the knife's fault it's so good at being so very bad [awesome] in the kitchen) of raw chicken ickies to prepare to chop the onion for the sauce, it happened. I cut my finger. BAD.

There was blood oozing everywhere. It was quite surrealistic, actually. I was saying, "Ow, ow, ouch! Oh, my gosh! OWWWWW!!!!!" And, not to mark him as a jerk, but as a man who is married to such a hyperbolic woman, my husband said, "What? Are you okay?"

And he came in the kitchen, saw me oozing, and handed me a paper towel and I said, "Move!!! I have to flip the chicken!"

Basically, he washed everything, flipped the chicken, helped make the sauce, and everything. And I smoked up our entire house because this sauce thing was supposed to go smoothly (made with the drippings in the skillet after moving the chicken to a very low oven for 1o minutes), but it didn't really because, God bless him, my husband simply can't chop onions as fast as I can, which is understandable, of course. So the drippings smoked. Our house looked awesome. We turned on all of the fans and opened the doors.

And even with all of this, we were still eating by just a bit after 8:00. Oh, if I could meet Jacques Pepin, I'd probably kiss him.

So... all of this to say... my finger is very badly hurt. I've got a bandaide on it now. I'm heading out to Beads Galore today because of their insane sale. Woot, woot! And hopefully I'll figure out how to make something that doesn't kill me. I hate for one of the days to be a little card or something, but if I have to, I suppose it's okay.

At least I have Jacques to help with dinner tonight.