Adventures in Crock-Pottery: Am I Domestic Yet?

I have never been much of a cook, or really even taken much of an interest in it. In fact it wasn’t until recently that I could handle raw chicken without setting off my gag reflex—which I consider a huge feat and am very proud of myself.

I warned LT. Hubs before the wedding that he was in for a rude awakening, since my mother in law is like Paula Dean—not in a racist way, but in an amazing cook kind of way.  And I was right to warn him, because for the first couple of months of our marriage, my go-to meals were hamburger helper, frozen pot pies, and taco salads. We joke that those are my “specialties.”

I’m not sure how I got over my chicken-phobia. But slowly and surely I did and started trying my hand at very basic recipes. It turns out I don’t suck but it’s still not one of my favorite things to do. It’s a lot of work for something that usually turns out mediocre at best, in my case, anyway. But at least everything is edible (so far), and practice makes perfect I guess.

 

LT. Hubs is being a pretty good sport about it, anyway. Then again, he’ll eat pretty much anything except olives. Also he has yet to make any meal for us other than grilled brauts or breakfast burritos, which are delicious, but he is still in no position to complain about my lack of skills. Which he hasn’t, luckily for him.

So this morning as I was going through my morning routine at work I suddenly remembered that I have raw chicken that needs to be cooked/frozen by today. Sacre Bleu!!

I supposed I could just stick in the freezer but I just hate thawing meat. I have no patience for it. But how was I going to get home, cook dinner and get out the door in time to make it to my 7:15 yoga class? I can’t screw up my shiny new schedule so early in its execution. Then brilliance struck:

My Crock-Pot. My salvation.

I have only used the crock pot one other time in the year we’ve been married. I think they compensate for making cooking easy by being a pain in the ass to clean afterword. But I had a nearly-expired chicken on my hands, and this seemed to be the best option.
So I ran home on my lunch break, hastily Googled “easy crockpot recipes” and settled on “Fake Chicken Cordon Blue.” The title itself speaks to my culinary finesse, but what can I say? It had me at “only 3 ingredients!” And I was all, “Bam.”

It took pretty much my whole thirty minute break to prepare (there was some chicken rolling and toothpicks involved) but I must admit it was nice to just dump it all in a pot, push a button, and be on my way.

6 hours later I came home from work and the apartment smelled amazing. We couldn’t wait to try it, so we did. It was actually pretty good! LT. Hubs gave the okay for the “make again” list. But we both agreed it was a little on the heavy side to eat pre-work out.

Anyways, here is the link to the recipe if you ever end up with some old chicken and need an easy out:

http://pinterest.com/pin/460070918154156094/

So you’ll never see me on Top Chef, that’s for damn sure. I’d still rather be using our oven for storage a la’ Carrie Bradshaw. Alas, I’ll continue to Google easy recipes so LT. Hubs won’t be doomed to a life of microwaved hot dogs and Raman noodles.