A Rhetorical Question

I have some things I seem to say over and over in my life... "Who made this mess?" "Go to bed!" and "I really need chocolate!" One of my very favorites is "Why did I even bother to cook?" This is one of those rhetorical questions I don't ever expect anyone to answer.

Tonight was one of those nights.

But first I have to backtrack to about a week before Christmas. My sweetie and I were heading out to Sam's Club. We needed to pick up stuff for the family Christmas Party and I put Teach in charge of the kids. As I was explaining all of the things I needed her to have the kids accomplish while I was gone, I jokingly offered to get her an extra present. Her answer was that it wasn't worth it. To which I replied, "I'll get you two!"

While we were in Sam's, I looked for something she would like that I would probably never buy. The first thing I grabbed was a bag of dried apricots, and on the next row I found a package of Quinoa (a name that I mispronounced for a couple of weeks until today when I actually read the package...it sounds like keen-wa).

On Christmas Eve I wrapped both gifts and put them under the tree. Teach was sure surprised when she opened them until I reminded her of the story. Ever since then she has harassed me to find a recipe that includes quinoa so that we could share it with the family. So that day was today.

We searched the internet until we found something that looked pretty good; like it might compliment Mexican cuisine pretty well. It had corn, black beans, and cilantro also mixed up with the cooked quinoa. I could have served it with quesadillas, but when I want to torture my children, I torture them good! I decided to use a box mix for Chicken Chili. I was ready to go when I realized that the chili only served 6 (not that it mattered, I was pretty sure I couldn't even get six of them to try it...)

So I doctored it up a bit.

By the time I was done it was looking pretty nasty. The kids would never eat it! So I put a handful of mozzarella cheese on top. That seemed to help a little with its apparent lack of appeal. The Quinoa dish came out looking much like the picture on the web, but I was pretty sure my picky eaters would have nothing to do with it.

I also cooked some veggie skewers that I assumed only my sweetie and I would eat. My only kindness was some hard rolls I grabbed at the store when I stopped by for the cilantro.

Dinner went much the way you might have expected. I offered the pickiest one roll unless they tried something new. Each took an extremely tentative bite of the chili. Baby Doll held up her little bowl for seconds and then thirds before I realized that she was only eating the melted cheese on top.

Quite frankly, I didn't love the food either...

My sweetie showed up about an hour after the rest of us had finished eating. He values his marriage, so he is usually pretty good to at least try everything. I was reading to the kids so I didn't go with him into the kitchen. I figured he would take a bite, shake his head, give his standard, "It's not my favorite" response and make himself some toast or a bowl of cereal.


Imagine my surprise when I started cleaning up and he asked me to put the leftovers in his lunch tomorrow! So in answer to my rhetorical question..."Why do I even bother to cook?"

I guess it's obvious. Against all odds, someone might actually LIKE it.