10 Days of Cooking

The wife went back home to New Jersey for 10 days leaving me and the boys behind to fend for ourselves. She is the primary chief in this household. She can walk into a kitchen and create an amazing meal where as I would only see ingredients. It is like her super power! I can follow a recipe, with instructions, exact measurements and cooking times. What she does is pure magic and makes no sense in my head.

I keep a note book of recipes that she has taught me; meat sauce, chicken soup, lentil soup, and wine chicken. I am always updating it with steps I forgot or things the wife failed to mention, usually measurements haha!

So for me, this meant that I was going to have to find a way to organize our meals for the next ten days. So, I wrote down everything I know how to make and even a few I had a pretty good idea how to make. And honestly thanks to YouTube there is very little I was not willing to at least try!

From this point on it was going to the store and buying all the ingredients, checking my cook book and cooking! Meal one was one of the easiest dinners, steak and fries. I did not take pictures of this one, it was over so fast I did not even think to take pictures. Much of the same happened with the hamburger and hot dog night. Slam bam thank you mama dinner is done! So for about four meals I did not take any pictures; Steak and fries, Hot Dogs and Hamburgers, left overs, or out eat out night. No one wants to see fast food, that just boring ha!

Meal two was beef stew, which came out ok…..I followed the instruction to the letter but the potatoes did not cook all the way through. That part was a little annoying but kind of expected. This has happened before, so I had to cook it a little longer on the stove. Note to self, try putting the potatoes on the bottom. I did add an extra ingredient, 100% Pain. It is not a hot sauce it is an ingredient, it does not add flavor but just a drop can add some serious heat! I add this to soups and stews….not too much just enough to give it a kick!

• 

• 

• 

• 

The next big endeavor was wine chicken, this one I have not made in a long time but one of my personal favorites. It is also one of the first things the wife taught me how to cook, and plus I am always down with a dish that I drink with while I cook!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The next meal consisted of raviolis with meat sauce. Luckily the wife had made the meat sauce the previous week so that step was just popping it in the microwave and bing bing meat sauce! We normally do not eat sauce that comes from the jar, we have used the jar stuff during times of desperation but that is not a regular occurrence.

One of the meals that required a YouTube video and a call to the wife was cream of chicken soup. I made chicken soup for one of the meals so step one was already done. Chicken soup is one of the meals I am very proficient at but taking it to ‘cream of’ was a whole new realm for me! But it came out damn good….I will be doing this one again I need to prefect this one!

• 

• 

From this point on we did a pizza night which was the Boboli pizza, pepperoni, bacon and cheese. A Taco Bell night, a left over night and I think we did an In and Out night. So in all no one went hungry and we all survived being dudes alone!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The 10 days went pretty well, but I must say that being alone is not fun. I have been with my wife for over 20 years and we have only spent a few times apart. One of the hardest was when I moved to California, that was the longest 6 months of my life. But in the end that was one of the best moves we could have made. We love it here so that 6 months of being alone paid off.

I was the man of the house for ten days and not one of my crotch goblins went hungry! And when she has to leave us again I will doing much of the same; write out the meals and implementing! I am not the spur of the moment cook, that is her specialty!