Another example of an interesting decision matrix forced upon you when you are debilitated.
First off, I have to say, I feel better now than I have since October/November; however, my stamina is limited. I am regaining my mobility. My legs feel infirm and if I’m vertical for too long, I begin to shake, but things are moving!!!! I really feel we are making progress.
Now, on to the conundrum. I am going to cook supper this evening. I don’t want anyone to help. Kathy is going to get home from work late because she has to pick up Hali from band practice. So, for the functioning of the household, I want to do this. My idea is they come home, dinner will almost be ready, we can sit, eat, talk, they can clean up and then we can relax until bedtime.
What I really want to cook is a chicken & sausage jambalaya. I love my jambalaya. It is my favorite recipe and I rarely eat other’s jambalaya because I am internally critical about it. I am not that way about gumbo. My favorite gumbo is cooked by a good friend of Kathy and mine, Jody.
However, for me to meet the requirement of doing this dinner without help, jambalaya is off the plate. (pun, intended). I would never be able to stand long enough to get my onions perfect. So, it is gnocchi soup. I would rather eat gnocchi with chicken and a cream sauce, but….. I’d have to stand for the sauce. I’m hoping that the soup will be good. The recipe sounds good, but, I’ve not done it before.
The point being: I have to find a recipe, that has a complex flavor pallet, but that requires very little movement. With the gnocchi soup, most of the movement and hands-on will be at the beginning. After I have all that done, then, I can sit and rest while it becomes soup.
Wish my family luck! I hope I don’t make them sick with this recipe. 🙂 I’m sure I won’t. I will just be very happy to not require my wife to cook for me for the first time in more than half a year. It’s bad enough that I can’t carry my own plate to the table (I spill it, not steady enough yet).
Thanks for reading,
Jay
For future use check out something like the instant. My roommate had this three tiered steamer I used to make rice, hard boiled eggs and chicken at the same time. In about 30 minutes all were ready. I put cajun seasoning on the rice after (I could have done it during) and cut up the chicken and eggs over the rice and it was incredible. Using this or other methods you can prep a ton of ingredients ahead of time and mix and match your flavors and heat them in the microwave or on the stove if you want some deeper flavor action. We made jambalaya for large crowds in the oven. Again with a lot of prep work we put it in the foil tray over uncooked rice, poured water over it and baked. I also prep onions, cucumber and matchstick carrots in a salt and sugar brine. Then I grab them to do stir fry. You can keep them in one big container in the fridge forever, they’re pickled. Each floats at a different level so it’s easy to get one of them at a time for different steps in cooking. I freeze prepeeled garlic cloves; 30 seconds in the microwave and they are so easy to mince and mellower than raw. Prep work is your friend if you are comfortable cutting while seated. Get a (good) mandolin and that’ll help.