As I've mentioned before, my husband is the cook. I CAN cook, but he's more of the family chef than I am. I can certainly feed my family, and I can make good food, but fancy food is not in my reparte.
Except for last night, where I have to say I made a pretty damn good Chicken Marsala.
Chicken Marsala is my favorite meal. It's what I judge a new (to me) restaurant on, and a favorite at some of my favorites. So when I saw that Brian had put it on the menu with rice and steamed zucchini, I was excited for a Monday night dinner. Being excited for anything on a Monday is a stretch, so this was a big deal.
In comes Murphy's Law. Good Ol' Mr. Murphy likes Mondays. And a big monkey wrench was thrown into the Chicken Marsala plans. Huge accident on the MassPike involving a coffee truck overturning and leaking fuel, which naturally brought gridlock and a rotten commute for all. Even for me, the lady who has nothing to complain about now that she has a itty bitty commute compared to the big honking 35-miles-each-way-through-Hell that I had years ago. I called Brian on the way home and reported the mess, and told him that it was going to take a while. He said that we could order sandwiches when he got home, whenever that was going to be.
Upon getting home though, I remembered that driving in that kind of mess just sucks the energy right out of you. Sometimes Brian would have a hot meal waiting for me and the travel stress would just slide away like water off a duck's back. So my mind was made up...dammit, I'm going in.....to the kitchen.
Instead of rice, I chose mashed potatoes since potatoes go bad a lot faster than rice. I pounded chicken breasts, sauteed mushrooms and onions, made sauce from scratch. All while feeding the kids sliced apples and leftover homemade mac n cheese with ham and fielding math questions from Sean and Minecraft video recaps from Will. At one point my house grew very smoky, and I had to run around opening doors and windows. (No fire alarms!) I was plating the chicken as the garage door opened, and everything was perfect. Well, truth be told the house was a little chilly because I forgot to close the dining room window. Usually I'm the chilly one but I was in a camisole and busting my butt in the kitchen! The chicken was perfectly cooked, soft without a hint of "rubber." The mushroom and onions didn't burn at all and the sauce was blended nicely. Awesome, I pulled it off!!!
And Brian? He loved it. Not that our local sandwich place doesn't have mighty fine wares, but a homecooked meal from someone that loves you at the end of a stressful day....nothing better than that.
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