Dinner's Ready

For a little bit of background...I love to cook, but since I am staying home with A during the day and not bringing home my awesome teacher's salary anymore (can you hear the sarcasm?) I am much more conscious in the grocery store. So on Sunday night, or sometimes on Monday morning depending on my mood, I sit down with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil (another story all in itself) and make a grocery list, including what we will be having for dinner each night. So as I sat down last night and planned out our dinners for the week, my list starting to take shape.

M: chicken sandwiches on fresh rolls with tomato and avocado

                corn on the cob

T: pesto salmon (my homemade pesto is so easy and delicious!)

                rosemary roasted potatoes

                artichokes

W: Bison burgers on Kaiser rolls

                tomato, cucumber, and feta salad

Th: grilled pork chops

                mango brown rice

                broccoli

I always only plan for four dinners because inevitable I want to get pizza one night :)

Anyway, back to my story...so today A and I filled up our cart with groceries, checking each item off our list as we went. A has been a bit "out of sorts" lately, which I am blaming on teeth coming in (since she is 15 months and only has 4 teeth) as the logical assumption, but because of this I have not been able to get much done in the kitchen without her wanting to be in my arms. As much as I love my daughter, it is terribly difficult to make dinner with only one hand. So after A finished eating her cod, mac and cheese, corn, and blueberries, I left her in her booster and scooted the chair into the kitchen to get the adult dinner ready. I had just finished putting some yogurt raisins on her tray, keeping her occupied while I quickly pounded out the chicken to grill, when the front door opened! It is always exciting when daddy comes home before bed time...so I quickly finished the chicken, threw it on a plate so it was ready for the grill and followed A and daddy into the family room to play. About 30 minutes later A was looking more like a drunk midget, that a little girl and I knew it was time for the tub.

As I am toweling a now clean child off, my husband opens the bathroom door and asks me what I did with the chicken. In slow motion my head swivels towards the door with a look of sheer horror spread across my face. My husband and my eyes connect and we both groan in unison. "The DOG" was all we need to communicate to know that our bigger monster had stealthily and daintily put her front paws on the counter and eaten our three, pounded, raw chicken breasts, off our blue Spode without so much as jarring the plate.  

Now, this has happened before, so although it has been a while, and we had clearly slacked on placing all meat in the microwave, and out of Preston's reach, I was still shocked. I knew I had nothing to really worry about, health wise, since dogs have an enzyme in their stomachs that breaks down salmonella, making raw poultry safe, but now I had to figure out a whole new plan for dinner.

My favorite saying in our house is, "if it's not one, it's the other" and tonight this could not be more accurate. Our little angel is fast asleep in her crib, our dog is walking around the house like she just won the lottery, and my husband is out grilling some bison burgers for dinner.

xoxo

Daily Mom