garbage

This week saw a big day for me!  Thursday was the first day I made something for dinner that was gross enough for me to not finish it.  It took me five years of cooking for myself for that to happen!  

That wasn't the only big thing, though.  Not only did I not finish my food, I also faced my fear of wasting food (which is a completely reasonable fear and one I will not be abandoning) and threw it and all the leftovers away.  Even though it was food.  BUT I knew neither of us would eat it, and it was either going to be thrown away tonight or in three weeks when I clean the fridge of rotted leftovers.  So I bit the bullet, trashed it, and it was actually kind of freeing!  I didn't even let myself feel guilty for it.  (It was pretty gross.)

I also learned an important lesson for the future - we typically don't really like meat that has been baked in juice.  Baked, not crockpotted.  A while ago we tried baked blueberry chicken - didn't love it.  Tonight's was baked cranberry pork - yuck.  But neither time was it about the taste - both tasted very good; it was all about texture.  I've learned if I want to make food like that, I need to cook the meat on the stove / grill, heat the sauce on the stove, and serve it like "meat and a sauce to dip it in or put on top," because then we'll eat and love it.  

(The only exception I can think of right now is baked cranberry chicken.  I looooove that stuff.)

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"All [a child] thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness.  After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but he will never afterwards be quite the same boy."  - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan