Start with your crock pot. On the bottom, layer half a large onion and 2 minced cloves of garlic. Cover those with salt, pepper, cilantro, and parsley, and whatever else you like. Nestle 3 large chicken breasts (skin on, bone in) on top. Layer the other half of the onion and about 1/2 lb of carrots on top. Season again. Turn it on high for an hour or two, then turn it down to low and go to bed.
Get up a little early and turn off your crock pot. Remove the carrots and set aside to cool. Remove the chicken and set aside to cool. Pour the broth through a strainer to catch all the grody bits, and set broth aside to cool. Go put on your makeup, fix your hair, and wake up your kid. While he is looking for his socks (they are in the bottom drawer, where they are every day) dish your cooled carrots, chicken, and broth into separate containers and refrigerate. Tell your child if he can’t find his socks, he can never play Wii again. He will find them instantly.
Take the boy to school, go to work, go to the grocery store and pick up 2 squash, 2 zucchini, more onions, red grapes, pecan halves, chicken broth (15 oz or so), 2 cans of white kidney beans, 1 can of corn, 1 can of diced tomatoes, some light sour cream, and some Peeps for the boy’s Easter basket. And a giant, stuffed duck that you thought was a chicken. You will realize your mistake when you sit down to write a blog entry.
Go home, unload and put away groceries, and help the boy with his homework, do laundry. Fold the boy’s clothes and put them away (remember that you left your own clothes in the dryer when you are partway through a blog entry. Curse having thought you were finished for the night.) Accidentally rewash husband’s clean clothes because they are sitting on top of the washer and you are feeling helpful. When your mother says, “You look tired,” do not snarl. Send mother home with hugs and kisses (no snarling), then move living room, dining room, and patio furniture around to be able to drag old sofa to the curb (with aid of husband) to accommodate new, improved sofa which will be delivered tomorrow. Discover that the time the boy barfed on the sofa Christmas day, the reason you thought the volume seemed light compared to the sounds he was making is because all of it had run down the side crack of the leather seat, to congeal in a disgusting disc on the carpet beneath is. Run the sweeper.
Return to kitchen and wash hands, find cutting board and proceed to slicing a large onion. Use the finger guard on the mandolin slicer so that you don’t slice through your thumb and bleed into the onion. Or, ignore that advice, and find band-aids. Utilize. Return to slicing.
In a large stock pot, warm 1 Tbs of olive oil. Toss in your diced onions and 2 cloves of minced garlic. While that gets going, open all your cans. This will be difficult to do while bleeding profusely, but you will manage. Once onion is translucent, pour in your drained cans of beans (both cans) and corn, and your whole can of tomatoes. Add your chicken broth and simmer. Salt and pepper to taste, then dump in about 1Tbs of chili powder. Accidentally. Or serendipitously. Depends on how spicy you like your chili.
Remove cold chicken, carrots and stock from the refrigerator and grab a grocery bag. Debone a breast of chicken, tossing grody bits into bag. Remove skin and any remotely inedible yarf and discard into bag. Dice chicken and shred, then add to pot. Bring to a boil. Taste broth and season as needed. Decide to toss in some cinnamon–about 1tsp. Mmm! This will yield you about 5, 2-cup containers of chili, worth about 6 WWPPV each. Serve or freeze for lunches.
While that is going–simmering about 20 minutes after the boil, add another stock pot to your stovetop and empty out the refrigerated chicken broth. Use your mandolin slicer (properly this time, you learned) to slice the squash and zucchini directly into the pot. Add the carrots, then prep another chicken breast, this time only dicing it. Drop all that into the pot, add 2 chicken bouillon cubes, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer 15 minutes. This will yield you about 4, 2-cup containers of soup, worth about 2 WWPPV each. Serve or freeze for lunches.
Finally, prep your last chicken breast and halve the meat. Chop up about 1/2 a cup of red grapes, crush up about 1/4 cup of pecan halves, add 1TBS each of mayo, dijon mustard, and light sour cream, then stir half the chicken meat into that. Season to taste. Refrigerate and serve on top of greens as a salad, or in pita bread as a sandwich. Yield is 2 large servings a 6 WWPPV each, or 4 small servings at around 3 points each–you could make it lower with low fat mayo, but that stuff is more disgusting than the 4 month old vomit you found under the sofa, so why bother?
With the last half of the meat, make chicken quesadillas with diced jalapenos, about 1/4 cup of cheese (your choice, I like Jack) each, and some Bacon Bits if you’re fancy. Serve those for dinner. Screw the WWPPV–you’ve worked them all off already.
Put boy to bed. Put boy back to bed. Put boy back to bed a final time. Let dog out. Let dog back in. Wonder vaguely where husband got off to almost 2 hours prior.
Sit down and enjoy a bowl of soup. Write a blog entry as a means of avoiding the dishes still needing to be done.
Get up. Get your laundry. Put it away. Take a bath. Go to bed, secure in the knowledge that at least you don’t have to cook tomorrow.
The Outside Lane 