when Kraft mimics craft
I’m a writer. Therefore you shouldn’t be too shocked to hear that my family ran out of milk. Since I neglected to get milk prior to us running out daughter’s face crumpled when she realized dry cereal was for breakfast. Thank goodness for husbands! He made her eggs. At 7 am the kids skipped off to school and the significant strolled into the sunrise toward work and I sat down to write. At 4:50 pm I looked around and the kids were chewing on the kitchen table. “Wow, you’re home already?” I asked. Then because I’m occasionally a good mom, I said, “Daughter, your brother will need those fingers at school tomorrow. Maybe I’ll start dinner.”
I opened the refrigerator and said, “Crap!” Yep, still empty. “I’ll make a concoction!”
No2Son (who will eat anything) said, “Yay!”
I sang a little working song and gathered the forest animals around me. Browned some ground beef, sprinkled in fancy spices, chopped the tomatoes (straight from the garden - thank goodness for the garden!), threw some refried beans in with the beef, shredded cheese and then got out the baking mix, the eggs and, “Crap!” still no milk.
So I did what EVERYBODY reading this has done. I opened the fridge and stared at it again. We all know that if we stand there and stare long enough, either a fly will get in, or we will find a solution-and I did.
Redi Whip.
The very last of it. I sprayed it into the measuring cup. The splooshy sound got No2Son’s attention and he strolled over to see what I was doing. His eyebrows arched and he said, “Yay!” I added water, stirred and suddenly I had a milk-like substance to add to my baking mix.
I poured the batter into a baking dish and cooked it for about 10 minutes before sprinkling on ¾ of the cheese and adding the meat and bean mixture. I cooked all that together for an additional 20 minutes before shaking the chopped tomatoes over the pan and sprinkling the rest of the cheese on top. Another 10-ish minutes and it was ready. And it was a hit. Best part…I made it up.
- I took ingredients I’d used before
- Put them together with stuff that usually didn’t belong.
- I checked its progress.
- Mixed it up when it didn’t seem right.
- Let it bake.
Oh my, sounds like I created a novel, doesn’t it?