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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

An Unfortunate Incident with Bulgur Wheat

This afternoon I had a conference call that ran until 5:15pm. The boys were excited because they got to watch TV, play the Wii or be on the computer for two solid hours. Oh yes, the electronic babysitting is a necessary evil some days.

Anyway, I had a rough idea of what we were having for dinner. I didn't have a concrete plan because I was one day beyond my normal meal planning for the week, but I didn't get to the store today. But I figured it was OK because I had some pork chops and I knew (thought) I had some Near East Rice Pilaf, which is my go to side dish when I can't think of anything else.

So when I came dashing downstairs to start dinner, I was dismayed to discover that I did not have said rice pilaf in my pantry. In fact, I was stymied by everything in my pantry. I was on overload from my two hour meeting and I could think of nothing creative to do with the brown rice, wild rice, orzo, or other various pastas facing me. I was drawing a blank.

And then something caught my eye: an unopened bag of bulgur wheat. Wait. What? When did I buy that? And why? What was I planning to do with this bulgur wheat? I like stuff like that cooked up as a hot cereal (I ate millet porridge for dinner last night--long story, I did a cleanse, I'll tell you about it later), but I was intrigued. So I went to my computer to see what is possible with bulgur wheat.

There were many options from breakfast to dinner, but I was lacking the ingredients for many. So I settled for this citrus-y salad with an orange/lemon dressing and had carrots, raisins, celery and sunflower seeds in it. It actually sounded good.

It wasn't.

I had to invoke the mercy rule at dinner tonight which happens when I make something so hideous I don't have the heart to insist that anyone eat it. They were good sports and tasted it. But even Eamonn, usually stoic in the face of my experimentation, picked out the raisins and carrots and left the rest.

The boys ate a lot of bread and butter with their pork chops for dinner. And some plain carrot sticks.

Usually we save leftovers and Eamonn eats them for lunch.

The bulgur wheat disaster didn't even go into the fridge. It went straight into the trash. A fitting end.

3 comments:

hyzymom said...

I have a husband who will eat pretty much anything I put in front of him... except... I twice tried to make some sort of peanutty chicken and a peanutty pork. It was suppose to invoke a Thai feeling. But, both recipes used peanut butter... After the 2nd debacle I was informed by my husband in no uncertian terms,
"Peanut butter belongs on nothing but TOAST!"

Kristie said...

Is there ever such a thing as a "fortunate" bulgur wheat incident? What the hell is bulgur wheat, anyway??? Clearly I need to step outside my comfort zone. :)

Kristie said...

PS. Hyzymom above me is a good friend of mine ---- she's hoot!