Three Cheers for DH!

I promised DH I would write a blog post about him. Somehow I made it sound like an honor, and he was pleased. I better make sure it reads like an honor then, right?

Seriously, though, I do want to love on him a bit. DH took a disaster-in-the-making and turned it into a most delicious meal last night. I was trying to make dinner. It was a really simple meal: chicken dipped in egg and then in crushed crackers, in a baking dish at 350 degrees for 25 minutes plus a salad. Easy! We had found a foil-wrapped package of meat that looked like chicken in the freezer while cleaning it up yesterday (it keeps thawing and re-freezing, so there's a constant puddle of something no longer frozen at the bottom. REALLY frustrating.) So, I've got the egg whipped up in a bowl, a plate of crushed crackers, a greased baking dish, and the oven's preheating. I was so with it! I start trying to unwrap the foil package, but it is absolutely frozen solid. I'm sure you've tried to unwrap frozen foil. It doesn't unwrap well - it shreds. I was getting frustrated, not only by the uncooperative foil, but also by the little body that had positioned itself between me and the cabinet and was pushing me away from the counter with all its strength. At the moment that the foil shredded into little bitty pieces, LB lost his footing and bumped his head on the way down, which naturally led to tears. I lost it. I was so grumpy at DH for just sitting on the computer while I was obviously losing my sanity in the kitchen. (Never mind that he was supposed to be working) I mean, if HE were cooking dinner, I'D be looking after Little One, but when I'M cooking dinner, I'm supposed to look after Baby Boy AS WELL??

<big breath>

So DH took over cooking dinner. He put the foil package in boiling water to thaw it a bit. As he started getting the foil off, he realized that it wasn't chicken - it was pork! My mom must have wrapped it up and put in the freezer when she visited last October and we had forgotten. If it had been me, I'm not sure what I would have done, but it might have involved fast food. But not DH. He not only kept his cool, but he cooked up a most delicious stir-fry, using up some items in the freezer that may not have survived another thaw-refreeze cycle. He scrambled up the egg, put the crushed crackers in a bag in the fridge, boiled up some rice, and even threw together a sweet-and-sour sauce (ok, I helped with that. I had cooled down by then). I admit I was a little skeptical about the dinner - it didn't look particularly appetizing, mostly due to the limp and almost colorless frozen veggies. But then we sat down to eat it and I was most pleasantly surprised! I told him so and that's when I told him I'd write a blog post about his victory. I mean, when a guy succeeds at being the knight-in-shining-armor in the KITCHEN, he deserves to be extolled over all the internet, no?

Epilogue: the chicken dinner is slated for tonight, and I already have the frozen chicken breasts (which are unmistakably CHICKEN) out of the freezer and in the fridge so they'll be thawed when I start cooking. I am so with it!