Day Six: Leftovers

It's Friday night, which makes me sad that we aren't going out to a restaurant.  We always close the kitchen on weekends, and enjoy eating food that is much better than ours at places that Jack finds entertaining.  The weather is nice again, which means this would be a great night to sit on a patio somewhere.  Just look how beautiful it was at the park this afternoon! 

Our own patio will have to do tonight, because we are committed to Home Cook Challenge!  (And even if we fail, I'm not going down this early).  Thanks to the plentiful ham, we have enough to live on leftovers today.  I simmered some beans in the crock pot and threw in most of the leftover ham.  After a few hours I added some onion, chilli pepper, and the secret ingredient: lemon juice.  One of Mike's many grilling buddies on Facebook notified him that today is National Bean Day.  Mike was very pleased we were celebrating appropriately.

The only other thing we needed tonight was some cornbread, which is a jiffy... and I do mean Jiffy!  I have always loved making cornbread because it was the second thing my mother ever allowed me to make on my own.  Jello was the first, and Jello hardly counts- just a little stirring and waiting while it sits in the fridge.  Jello is not all that different from cornbread, now that I think of it.  Just a little stirring and waiting while it cooks in the oven. 

Although, there is the all important breaking of the egg.  I always get nervous breaking eggs.  As a child, I would watch my mother and sister break eggs with wonder.  A few soft taps on the mixing bowl, and their shapely, polished nails would gently ease the shell apart, letting the insides glide down into the cookie dough.  My brother, too, loved to break an egg, but more from the desire to break something than to be helpful.  He would smash the egg against the rim of the bowl, then yank the two halves apart.  Amazingly, no shell made it into the bowl.  My efforts never ended that well, and I preferred not to try while my siblings watched.  As you can tell, I still overthink this simple task.

The breaking of the egg went well tonight, and we had a great dinner of bean soup on cornbread.  Mike likes to load his soup with relish, while I eat mine plain.

I think this is pretty strange, but relish is technically a vegetable, so I don't pick a fight over this one.  Jack resisted all attempts to coax him into eating a bean or a bite of ham. 

We add another success to our story tonight, because Jack finally ate cornbread for the first time.  He also devoured his pickle over several minutes, leaving behind a wet, slimy sleeve for the duration of the evening.

Our first Friday is under our belt.  Although it was not nearly as fun as eating out, we had a great time together at home.  Jack was welcome to wipe his slimy sleeve on anything he wanted, and Mike and I could lie on the floor to race Matchbox cars down the hallway.  Tomorrow we'll have to perk it up a little, because we have guests coming!