My Freezer Challenge: Day 5

When we first married I was still learning to cook. I knew how to brown a chicken and boil an egg...I wasn't a complete idiot in the kitchen, but I was still learning the ropes quite a bit. One day I decided that I was going to cook pinto beans and sausage. Together. In the slow cooker. Sigh...I knew to soak my beans (dried) overnight as I'd seen my mother do countless years. I knew they'd take a good long while to cook, too. I bought a bag (one pound), soaked them all night, rinsed them off the next morning, loaded them in the cooker. Took out the sausage, cut it in slices, and added it to the beans. And let it cook. All day. On high. That night we ate in the living room at the coffee table and dined on crunchy pintos with overcooked sausage. It was horrible. I cried and Ryan tried to comfort me by saying, "No really! It's good! See?" Which just made me cry more. I didn't want to admit failure so I continued to cook them.

For three days.

Including nights.

They never did get soft. (and can you imagine what the sausage tasted like?)

We laugh about it now, but at the time, I was a failure in my own eyes.
So it's no surprise that Ryan walks lightly into the kitchen every time I mention that I'm cooking pinto beans...however they will never see a slow cooker in my kitchen. That's a relationship that may work in other homes, but in mine it brings back too many memories.

Yesterday went much better. I woke up, went to the freezer and pulled out some boneless pork ribs (from Sam's!) and put them in the slow cooker (yes, still frozen...a friend taught me that). I took a packet of onion soup mix and sprinkled about half of it over the ribs. I usually mix this with a can of cream of mushroom soup and pour that over the meat, but I thought we'd try to save a few calories so I only put water in this time. I knew I had my pinto beans that I'd halfway cooked Saturday night so I went back to the freezer and searched for a frozen veggie that would be quick since I knew we'd be hungry when we got back from church. Found a "steamer bag" of sweet corn. Good enough. Went to church, came home, started some tea and turned on the beans (to finish cooking...they take a while, you know), added some sliced salad cucumbers, and pulled out the fruit dip and blueberries (for dessert). Ryan got home at 12:20 and we were sitting down to a really nice meal by 12:35. And I was able to use up a bag of meat and a bag of corn (from the freezer) and a half a bag of dried pinto beans (from the pantry). Granted, I've got leftovers, but Ryan will be taking those with him to work as lunches.

Beautiful, yes?

Supper time came and I wanted some junk. There's something about Sunday supper that screams "easy" in my ear. We had hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. Probably not the healthiest meal, but we didn't have to go out of the house and I was in the mood for it anyway.

So I'm back in the saddle...hopefully the horse won't be wild.