Food doesn't have to be pretty

So, I had been planning to make stuffed poblano peppers for a few days, and with thawed chicken and leftover cornbread, I figured last Friday would be the perfect time, just needed to pick up the peppers on our grocery trip. That was my first mistake: PLANNING to make dinner based on our grocery list. By the time Marshall got all his paper packed up, and ready to go to FedEx, which he decided to do BEFORE the store, it was after 7PM. So much for trying to make a meal that was going to take an hour to cook, when I knew we weren't going to be home from the store before 9PM. (On a side note, Marshall felt bad about taking so long, and took me out to dinner. Yummy Southwest Tacos from On The Border!)

Saturday rolls around, and I have spent most of the day working on school work. (I know, my bad, I really try and get the school work done during the week.) So, 7PM rolls around, that is usually when I start dinner, and I realize that I haven't cooked the chicken! Okay, plan B, again! (Can't even remember what I made now, it was that unremarkable.)

Sunday was Superbowl Sunday, and Marshall had been bugging me for a while to make pizza, so I decided to put the peppers on the backburner once again, to make my hubby homemade pizza. (I made two individual pizzas and used the thawed chicken for my Chicken, Artichoke and Pesto pizza, and took another breast out of the freezer to thaw, for the stuffed peppers.)

(This is a homemade pizza I had to "fix" when the crust stuck to the pan)

Monday, I made the stuffed peppers! I took and braised the chicken breast in chicken stock and spices, then shredded it up, crumbled leftover cornbread, grated quesadilla cheese, then added three beaten eggs, and two packages of green chiles. Then I realized that my stuffing would be way more than enough to fill my poblano peppers. I was talking to mom on the phone when I made this startling discovery, and she said "Hey, you can make patties tomorrow with the leftovers!" Go mom! So the peppers turned out really good, and Marshall liked the way the stuffing tasted (me, too), so I thought, what the heck, I will take mom's advice and make patties. I've got some asparagus I need to cook, so I could make a cheese sauce to go with it. Yay! Tuesday's dinner was figured out!

(Stuffed Poblano Pepper)

So, last night I get all my ingredients together, and I am trying to figure out how I am going to cook the patties, boil the asparagus, and make the cheese sauce all at the same time. The asparagus will only need a few minutes, as well as the cheese sauce, but the water will take a while to boil. This may seem like a weird dilema, seeing as I have four burners on my stove. I don't know why, but I am really only comfortable using 2 at a time. (We have a glass cooktop.) I fought the urge, and used three burners. Water is boiling for asparagus, pan heating for patties, butter melting for cheese sauce. Eveything is going as planned. Add the chicken goop, formed into patties. Check. Asparagus into boiling water. Check. Cheese sauce made. Check. Turn over patties. Oh, crap! They look burnt, and aren't really holding their shape. Marshall comes in, I say "Not really sure if dinner is going to work out." Loving hubby says, "we can always get Subway." Gotta love him.

Finished cooking the patties, I knew they were done because I used my trusty thermometer Marshall got me as a Christmas gift a couple of years ago. Plated up the patties and asparagus, and tried to cover up the extremely ugly looking food by drowning it in cheese sauce. Did not help the aesthetics at all. Oh well, Marshall did say we could go get Subway. Oh, and did I mention that he said we could always blame mom if it was inedible? Again, gotta love him!

Long story short, the chicken stuffing patties covered in green chile cheese sauce were delicious! Of course they were, I made them! Just kidding, and the credit all goes to mom, because it was, afterall, her idea!

(No picture of the patties, because I did not want to scare small children away from eating.)