If You Happen to See Snow Outside Your Window...

...it may have something to do with the fact that I cooked dinner last night.

I use the word "cook" very lightly. I mean, most of the real action happened in the oven. It was my duty to make sure the dish never made it to the burn unit. I succeeded to some degree. My son did question the burnt smell a few times. I talked over him though and continued with my master chef persona.

How did I arrive at making a dish for my family? Well, to most this is not a typical question you would ask, but for me, this was a rare occasion. We are spoiled blessed to experience the cooking of relatives on most days, so preparing dinner was extremely low on my priority list.

Anyway, this is what happened.


The other day, I heard a knock at the door. Hoping it was UPS or FedEx (both regulars at my address), I tipped to the door, peeped outside, and swung it open. There stood my cousin with an armful of goods. And by goods I mean two huge trays of pre-cooked Penne pasta and a bag of lettuce (I'm not sure if I was suppose to feed an army or my rabbit, neither of which were on hand to do so). Not exactly the package I was expecting, but I was still grateful nonetheless.

He told me that the neighbor had dropped off tons of food across the street at my grandmother's house. I live literally feet away from her. It's nice to have family near-by. That's one less person who can call the cops on you for blaring your music too loud, especially if it's Justin Beiber (just kidding). His dramatic display of hand gestures used to demonstrate the amount of food brought left me thinking the world was nearing end.

Should I have stocked the shelves? Did we have enough bread? Toilet paper? Ice Cream (that's close enough to milk)?!

As it turns out, the neighbor just had extra food from an event, and could not possibly use it all. I obliged and placed the items in my fridge. Who knew when they would see the light of day, or a stove top for that matter.

Days passed and I attempted to use the pasta and lettuce for dinner. Everytime I opened the fridge, there they were -- a constant reminder of my slacking in the dinner preparation department. It was if the trays of pasta were reaching up like a baby inside a crib who wanted out whenever someone walked by.

Finally, I gave in!

I picked Kaden up from school (and his new obese friend called the bass) and we headed to the grocery store. I picked up a few key ingredients and returned home. Did I mention this was all before 4:30 PM? That alone is a record. I don't even think about dinner until 6:00 PM on most days. Nothing about our family is traditional.

After little to no preparation, this is what I created:

Added ground beef, green peppers, onions, mushrooms, and seasoning


Added pasta sauce


Sprinkled with cheese ( I wanted to add more, but Kaden said this was enough) 


Baked it in the oven on God knows what temperature and for God knows how long



Dinner was served! Everyone enjoyed it. We all went back for seconds. Heck, I had some for breakfast. 

And if either Kaden or Ian are reading this post, you'll be eating this again tonight. It will be a cold day in Maryland, with snow on the ground before I attempt to cook again. Just kidding...a little



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