The Texas summer has been unbearable this year, the heat has almost taken my breath away. So who feels like cooking? Not me. I haven’t even felt like blogging. Did you notice?
Our outdoor grill served us well during these uncomfortable days. I’ve avoided turning on the oven–the air conditioner works hard enough. But that all changed yesterday when I found three little Banquet Pot Pies in the freezer.
Lucky, two were beef pies. Oh, you remember, James doesn’t like chicken. Nobody’s gonna throw this guy under the chicken bus. Beef. Pork. Beef. Pork. There will be none of those legs and wings touching his plate–where’s the other white meat?
Aw, okay, he will eat it if, 1) I don’t tell him ahead of time what he’s eating for supper, and 2) it only shows up once every three months, and 3) he’s a real hungry hombre. Pork, Beef–How easy is that?
And how easy is this: Tear open box, remove pies, place on cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes. There’s a microwave version, but I like them oven-baked.
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While those little pies heated, I threw together a salad reminiscent of days before the garden burned in this sizzling sun–when I cropped fresh spinach and lettuce from the dirt and tossed it with home-grown parsley, cucumbers, tomatoes and onion slices. The nice little side reminded me there are cooler days ahead.
I’ve bought lots of brands of pot pies, some pricy enough that I thought, maybe they’re the best. Not so. I keep coming back to Banquet Pot Pies with their top crust and bottom. I keep a few for staple stand-by’s in my freezer for occasions, like last night, when I don’t want to cook but the time has come for something hot.
(BTW, if you’re wondering, this is purely my opinion and not any kind of advertisement for Banquet food products.)
I think James’ dislike of chicken stems from when he was a kid–doesn’t everything stem from being a kid? From when a mean, angry, unnamed rooster would sit waiting, watchful over his territory–a territory that ran the distance of a football field from the school bus stop all the way down a dirt road sealed off between two barbed wire fences before it reached the house.
That rooster waited for James and his brother to step off the bus, start down that road. He’d scratch the dirt, squat with his red head stretched forward, and fly toward them in a flurry of feathers. Home from school became a daily adventure of terror–the squawking, the gloating, the hustle. It never ended good.
That mean-spirited bird would jump on their backs like a five-pound mosquito, to dig his sharp spurs into their sweaty little bodies of flaring arms and legs. Until, that is, he met the end of his daddy’s pointy boot. Man, could that rooster fly! All the kids on the school bus cheered.
But daddy’s boot wasn’t always available, and one day that stringy bird ended up the star of the dinner table. Ah, chickens, childhood. The memories–he’s still pretty fast when he needs to be.
Anyway, I presented James his beef pies and a salad unmarked by cucumbers, tomatoes, onions or parsley, while I sat down to a marvelous chicken pot pie served beside my lavish salad smothered in heart-attack bleu cheese dressing. I do love chicken.
I also love seafood. I love Italian, Asian, Japanese and Indian foods. You get the idea–they’re the kinds of food I go for when I’m out with friends. I’d never, ever, ever try to drag him into an Indian restaurant, for instance. Phew on that–I like to enjoy my meal. I hope I always have this rock solid stomach that guides me into those superb grocery stores where women smash together Sushi right there in front of me…eel, shrimp, tuna. It all tastes like wasabi anyway.
So now you know, James is pretty easy to please as long as it’s beef or pork. But for the beef pot pie, he even told me he liked it, and let’s do it again! You can believe it.
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