Life Reflections through Braised Chicken

Night 1

My dad asked what does braised mean? I said I have no idea! I had never even used a crock pot or peeled skin off of chicken before this week. Today I looked up braised and it means cooking meat slowly so that is gets really moist, even if it’s a cheaper meat.

That sums up my thoughts on the first night. I have been a vegetarian for over 10 years until my 4 year old returned from a trip to Oklahoma (without me) declaring he now eats meat. So I have very little experience cooking meat or eating meat. I followed the recipe exactly the way it was written for fear of messing it up. The Braised Chicken was the moistest meat I may have ever eaten! It was also very easy to prepare at 1 pm when the children were happy playing in the kitchen. We even made it to Karate that night, got home at 6:30, and hosted my dad to try the dinner out. I served it over whole wheat spaghetti which was a great way to taste the sauce.

I walked away from this night feeling like “Super Mom”! I managed to make this healthy, gourmet meal with a guest, happy children, and no help from my husband who was working late. (Thank you to dad, for helping with clean up and getting children into bed.)

Night 2

This is when things take a turn for the worse. I had overcommitted myself for the day. I helped a friend, invited another guest for dinner, and told my husband it would be okay if he showed up at 7 pm. We hit the five o’clock hour and that is melt down time in our house. I’m not sure if the children and I are just desperate for someone new to interact with or if we are just DONE with the day. The house was a mess, I couldn’t imagine trying a new recipe, and I was trying to think about how to back out of dinner.

After some emotional support from Emily (fellow ‘Beauty’), my husband, and Cindy (our savior who lives next door) I am able to push though my meltdown. The recipe looks harder than it really is. All you do is throw together the leftovers, chicken broth, okra, and red pepper and heat it up. I cooked the brown rice separately so in retrospect I would have cut down the amount of broth because some of that should have gone into the rice (although Justin our guest said the consistency was right on).

Even though the house was a mess and the kids were up until 9:30 p.m., we still invited our neighbors to join us! We had a great meal, great company, and all that other stuff didn’t matter. I remembered a quote my cousin who is in the Peace Corps posted once and shared it with our guests. “When you live your dreams, it is not perfect. You still get sad, angry, etc. You just feel more alive. More tingly and smiley. You start to understand what all those mysterious artists were talking about in their quotes.” Amber (fellow ‘Beauty’) after having her first child said something about how now all of those love songs that used to be about her boyfriend were really about her child.

And here comes the life reflections through Braised Chicken…I am living my dream. I am lucky. I am doing liberating, important work. It is hard, repetitive, and right where I want to be. Changing diapers isn’t glamorous but it is little chores that add up to the big picture. I try to remember to stay in the moment. I chose a profession in college of “helping others” but I need to work now on those closest to me. It won’t last long so I need to treasure every moment. Including dinner parties in messy houses!