Crock it to Me!

And just like that, it was over.

Week Four dawned, and with it, my hope. I thought, hey. Hey. It's almost over.

And then I got all excited, and it was almost like Week One again.

Oh, but that I could have known what was ahead. Before I get too excited, let's start with:

Week Four, Night One: Chicken Fiesta!

I did that thing on the dry erase board where you put the upside down exclamation mark in front of the word, but I can't find that option on my keyboard, so screw it. I thought that the simple addition of said exclamation mark made the whole thing infinitely more exotic (read: Spanish). My real goal was to hide the fact that I had fully INTENDED to make white chili again, but realized after I started that I didn't have close to the ingredients that were necessary to close the deal.

So what I did instead was put shredded chicken, white corn, green salsa, fire roasted salsa tomatoes, black beans, chicken broth, and green chilies in the crock and back away slowly. Hunter was taking a nap, so when it was done I tiptoed into his room, eased the bowl next to the bed, and booked it right out of there before he awoke and discovered that there was nothing chili about that dinner.

He ate it, but pronounced it too soupish for his refined palate. He asked what happened to the chili.

Whatever, kid. This ain't the Taj Mahal. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit. Basic kindergarten rules.

Week Four, Night Two: It's Over.

I remember the moment it happened well. I had clocked off and was in the process of thinking about standing up from my desk chair when I got the text. I had, that morning, asked Hunter what he wanted for dinner that night. At some point in the day, and who even knows what goes on in his mind, he had made a monumental decision.

The text read: I'm doing Paleo diet now.

And just like that, it was over. Sure, it was roughly only 12-14 meals, but it was over. Our month-long adventure had come to an end after three weeks.

So I did what any mom would do, and feverishly crammed on Pinterest to learn the Paleo way. I decided that I could master this. I could make this happen. I decided I'd pull something together by Wednesday.

Wednesday morning, Hunter and I had our little morning routine. We were both leaving the house earlier than usual. He left at about 7:15, and I was on my way out the door a few minutes later, when my phone started to buzz in that way that means it's an actual phone call.

It was Hunter. I remember thinking that it was lucky I was still home, because he had forgotten something.

But what he said instead was, "Mom? I got in an accident."

I remained fairly calm. Until I fully realized how close he came to not being okay. My anti-texting-while-driving crusader had reached over to move things out of his passenger floorboard and run right into a culvert, tapping a utility pole, which then split in half. The top half, containing the transformer, got caught up in a tree over his windshield. Wires came down in front of his car, but not on it.

His worst injury was an arm rash from the airbag deploying. He had exited the car, like a big dummy, but had not gotten electrocuted.

Therefore, dinner was not on my mind Wednesday night. So that night was out.

By the next night, he had purchased one of those hot plate things and a lot of eggs, and had determined that eggs would be the go-to staple of his new caveman diet.

But I threw some chicken and veggies in the Crock, as a last huzzah.

He ate them all, and while they didn't get an individual rating, I'd say the overall Crocksperience got the following nod:

But some good came from it. I realized that I was capable of putting together meals that weren't dessert-based. And if anyone wants any of the recipes, hit me up. I'm totally cool with it.

The Hardest Blog.

I've been putting this off for over a week, because to write it is to truly acknowledge it.

To acknowledge it is to admit it.

And I don't want to.

But I guess I'll start...at the beginning. And that's hard, because I don't remember a moment that WAS the definitive beginning.

You were just always there. I don't remember you NOT being there. It wasn't every day, although sometimes it did seem like it. It wasn't on a regular timetable; you didn't come for dinner every Sunday, or anything like that.

You were just a major part of my life, from early childhood well into my high school years. It was heavily concentrated around my participation in the sports you helped my dad coach, but prior to that, it was you and my dad participating in assorted sports leagues together, and me hovering on the periph, wanting desperately to be a part of this camaraderie and knowing that my ticket in was to show an interest, put in the time, and become an athlete myself.

Totally worked, by the way. But with you? I know I had a ticket in regardless.

You just loved me. You loved me so much I felt like you were kinda my other dad. While I know now that you had that impact on easily hundreds of other kids over the years, at the time I truly believed it was just me.

I was fascinated with you from the beginning. I hadn't been taught that people were different, but in Nevada, faces were a sea of white. Yours was much, much darker. Your skin was like nothing I had ever seen, and I couldn't stop staring at you. What made me realize some people saw that as anything other than a cool thing was the looks on some of those white faces when you would introduce me as your daughter. To their credit, most laughed, but the occasional expressions of confusion and something else I couldn't quite place made me realize that it must be very lonely for you in a town like this. And I was just so happy that you spent so much time with my family that I kind of wanted you to myself, anyway.

Kids don't think much beyond what they see.

I don't remember how old I was...seven? when you showed up one Christmas morning. You were on your way to see your actual daughter, but you came by our house first, with a present.

"I'm on my way to see my daughter," you explained, "but I wanted to come see my other daughter on the way."

You gave me a little pewter container. The lid was also a brooch, and there were two earrings that were part of the design and could be removed and worn.

It was fabulous. You had thought of me, gotten something for me, and brought it to me on the most sacred of all days.

I was all yours after that.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes I didn't want to be all yours. When I did join that echelon of people who chose to play sports, and my dad started coaching my first AAU basketball team, you were right there as his assistant. By then I had acquired all of the hormones associated with being a girl of a certain age. I was awkward. I had bad hair. I had braces. I had acne.

I wasn't the same cute little girl who had first attached herself to you physically and emotionally, and nobody was more aware of that than me.

But you would never know it to look at you. You treated me just the same as you always had, even when I got moody and shut you out. You were patient, and you never, ever stopped trying to teach me. About sports, yes, but also about life.

My favorite moments were the ones in which you dropped that almost-always-present patience with us as a team and showed us some passion. The jumping up and down in a circle of fury on the sidelines. The starting to yell, and then stopping yourself mid-syllable, before you got carried away.

You and my other dad were quite a pair. I don't know how many ejections there were in my years as your basketball student, but I know that none of them were players on the team.

And I loved it. I never fouled out of one game...just not aggressive enough. But my coaches made up for it.

Then my sophomore year concluded, and with it, my basketball career. You had gotten married by then, and you had your own family to fill up your days. You were no longer my coach. And, you know, life happens. People drift apart.

When I did see you, though, it was like not one day had passed. We were right back to the way it had always been, and even when I acted annoyed, I secretly loved it.

Then there were a lot of years when I didn't see you at all. Until our paths crossed again in what would prove to be a shitty, shitty battle for us both, although you took the biggest hit.

I was undergoing treatment for cancer when you found me on Facebook. You coached me again, through messages. You told me you loved me, you told me you were so sorry I was going through this, and you told me I could beat it.

When I had made it through to the other side, it was your turn to get hit with the news. Only you didn't have the cotton-candy version of Cancer Lite that I had. You got hit in a bad spot. I knew it when I heard it, and I know you knew it, too.

And I froze. I tried to encourage you, but I was so blindsided and shell-shocked that I could not be, and was not, the comfort to you that you were to me.

That was inexcusable.

But my mom stayed in touch with you, and would tell me how you were, and that you had sent your love, and I felt like we were connected. And I told myself that so many people loved you that you didn't need me.

And then I heard you had made a comeback. And then I didn't hear anything else for a long time, and I told myself that was a good thing.

But I should have remembered who I was talking about. You were never one to play the victim.

So it was with shock that I took the news Friday that you were very suddenly in a coma.

I went home after receiving the coma news and got the news that you were gone that same night.

I handled it badly. I cried until a noise I didn't even know I could make, a noise I didn't even initially realize was coming from me, shattered the air. A half carton of eggs that had the misfortune of being on the counter died that same night. Some Oreos were severely injured.

I left the house and drove in a blind fury until I ended up, completely spent, back in my driveway.

And none of it made any difference. You were still gone. I read your Facebook wall, which filled up with message after message from your former kids, all of whom had very similar stories to mine.

You had that way about you. You had that way of making every single person feel like they were the most important, hell, the ONLY, person in your life.

How could you do that? How could you possess such a gift and share it so freely, so selflessly, with the world, and not be granted 100 years to keep changing lives?

And THAT is what I hate about life. That's what isn't fair. That's what I will never be okay with.

At the funeral Friday, I stood in line to sign your book, trying to shut out the voices around me, each with its own story of your love and light.

My dad approached me, stretching his arm out for a side hug. As he pulled me in, I expected words of comfort. Instead, he said, "Did you get those time cards dropped off?"

He, too, wasn't ready to think about this cruel finality. Denial is so much easier.

My mother was the same way. As a man walked past to find a seat, she whispered to me that he had 10 kids, and did I know that? She had dried tears on her face, but she was desperately warding off the feelings that hovered like an oppressive smog just overhead, threatening to close in and overwhelm us.

We were willing to grasp at anything that might help us forget the reason we were all there.

It worked for awhile. The pastor made the service feel like a church sermon, which lulled me into believing it was nothing more than that. A speaker had so many humorous anecdotes that each and every one of us could relate to that it became easy to get carried away in the memories.

But then, the end. The pictures overhead. The music.

When "Over the Rainbow" by IZ Kamakawiwo'ole - aka the ukulele version - started, that's when the smog descended.

How could you be gone? How could we not be that little girl and that strong, laughing man anymore? How could it be over in what felt like the blink of an eye?

WHY?

So many people loved you, and so many people mourn you like they have lost their best friend.

And they are all right. You were everyone's best friend. But more importantly, as the funny speaker said, everyone believed that he or she was YOUR best friend.

I love you, dad. See you later.

Things I've Learned from Nevada Fitness Club, Part Two

I decided to keep going back to Nevada Fitness Club after that disastrous first night, because I felt great afterward. And that feeling of greatness continued through post-workout Night Two, my introduction to T25.

T25 was great, because even though it is an intense cardio workout, it's only 25 minutes in length, and that's my dream length of time when I'm doing any kind of intense physical activity.

And then there was Night Three: The First Night of Insanity.

Sure, I had heard about Insanity, but only by description, and that description was pretty much always brief and limited to the same wording: "It sucks."

But the same guy who founded T25 created Insanity, so I thought, well, T25 wasn't TOO bad, so Insanity should be doable, as well.

It's that kind of logic that makes me a better creative-type thinker.

It's not like I didn't KNOW what I was going into. But retroactively, I didn't know what I was going into.

The best way I can phrase it is, "It sucks."

I went without Regan, and when I got there I saw one of my new theater employees right next to my favorite spot on the back row. She had recently suffered an ankle injury, so I thought, well, if she's here with an ankle injury, I can definitely handle this. I had NO ankle injury.

Like I said, logic - not my bag.

She basically mopped the floor with me.

"Mopped the floor" was also the position I favored that night, because that's what you could have done with my prone body as I literally covered it in a face-down, spread-eagle type position. I made it through about eight minutes straight and then melted to the ground in a lake of my own sweat.

What kind of monster would come up with this workout? And then act all peppy throughout that many straight minutes of hell?

Hmm, I just don't know. Could it be....SATAN?

It was strange that I limped through a quarter of the workout and still felt so absolutely destroyed afterward. How could anyone get through that entire thing? That many pushups!? That much running and lunging and running and pushing up and who the hell invented the Burpee? Yes, all of these signs pointed to this being Satan's work.

And yet, I continued to go back. And then, slowly, very, very slowly, I lost some weight.

And then some more. We're talking, like, five pounds. But in addition to that five pounds, I started to see some definition. For the first time, I had semi-defined abs. I had sculpted arms. I didn't realize it until I re-connected with a very dear former friend over the summer and he couldn't stop talking about my arms. And then my oncologist, during my annual "Feel-Up in July" event, asked me if I had been working out. It was during a very awkward part of the exam, but still, she asked. And then followed it with a comment that she could really tell in my arms, and that I looked good.

So that was really awesome. By July I had lost 12 pounds, as well, although that was probably too much. I'm only saying that to justify the seven I've gained back, really.

And now, 10 months later, I breeze through (and by that I mean I remain mostly upright throughout) Insanity.

So I have learned that being almost 40 does NOT mean that I can't be in pretty good shape.

The biggest struggle, though, is continuing to find time. And sometimes, with two jobs, that's really, really hard. I'm learning to make this a priority. And I find that it's getting easier and easier to do.

Seriously, come hang with us.

Things I've Learned From Nevada Fitness Club, Part One.

In January of 2014, I had finished my fall semester of hell and had begun my spring semester, which, pre-thesis, made me feel like I had a LOT of free time. Free time for me is a disaster, as I tend to spend too much of it over-thinking. Although my over-thinking this time ultimately ended up being dead accurate, I didn't realize that then, and decided that I would try going to the Nevada Fitness Club a couple of nights a week with my brave and loyal friend, Regan.

We started on January 27, and almost quit that same night.

When you're used to doing yoga for 23 minutes, five nights a week, and spending roughly half of that balanced on one leg while playing Candy Mania, an actual workout with other people there to hold you accountable, a workout of ANY kind, is kind of a kick in the pants. This first night was Combat Cardio, and the instructor spent about 47 of the 50 minutes between Regan and I, but more toward me, telling me how much I sucked at all the ways of kicking. I felt like the Karate Kid when Mr. Miyagi first got a hold of him, only flabbier (side note: I actually spelled Mr. Miyagi right on the first try, which is crazy, or indicative of my level of fandom).

So while I should have felt defeated after that first night, instead I felt GREAT. I highly recommend Combat Cardio if you have any stress whatsoever. Just air-punch and curb-stomp whatever your personal El Guapo is, and I promise you'll feel better, or more tired. One of them.

I struggled that first week, only going two nights (one of the four nights I had night class, and one of them Regan worked, so we agreed that two of four wasn't bad for beginners).

The point is, I have learned a lot in the time since January 27, and I'm going to break it down into individual lessons that Fit Club has taught me.

Lesson One: I Got MOVES.

I am very, very clumsy. I trip over nothing. I bang into door frames, even specific ones that I've been through many, many, MANY times before and should well know. I fall down the last two to three steps regularly. And the only, only way I can dance is if I'm pretty drunk. I can't dance, is what I'm saying.

However, a little crisscross punch here, a little up-center-back-center there, and all of a sudden, my repertoire has expanded from the Bus Driver and the Knee Cross to like, five or six consecutive moves! I could even semi-choreograph a dance!

I'm just kidding. I'll leave that to the NHS Dance Team. But I have actual potential moves, should I ever want to dance sober. Which I undoubtedly won't.

And although those first weeks were very, very klutzy, I was able to eventually transition into anticipating and successfully completing even the trickiest footwork. Mostly. And if I can do that, you should definitely come try as well.

Monday through Thursday, Nevada Community Center, 6:30 p.m. I'm the one in the back, closest to the door.

The Crock Stops Here.

This afternoon, around 4:00 p.m. (or 1600 as we say in the industry), Hunter delivered some disturbing news. I can't bring myself to type it out, so screenshots will have to suffice.

And it goes a little somethin' like this.

I had heard of this diet, of course, because I have heard of all diets. I'm pretty diet-obsessed like that. So I went with my first instinct, which was to try to walk away from my second responsibility as a parent: to keep my child fed (first is to keep him safe. I think. I'm foggy on the order).

Anyway, he didn't buy it, obviously, so my next step was resignation. He closed in for the kill.

I tried to diffuse and distract with bribery.

Long story short, it didn't work, and he said that since he was working and had no time to wait, he would grab his own dinner. I'm off the hook for now. But what this all means is, there may not be a Crockin', Week Four.

I'm Still Jenny On The Crock

Week Three felt like, I don't even know. Like you're at the end of a pie-eating contest, and you already know you're not going to win, and the only thing you're really going to take away from this is five extra pounds, but you can't just quit like a little bitch, either.

I had a strong Week Two, score-wise, and don't get me wrong, that felt great. But I wasn't feeling it anymore. I wanted to make some wraps. I wanted to have eggs over easy and avocado slices. I wanted to have a night of cookies and ice cream. I wanted my old standby, the jar of Peter Pan Creamy with Honey and a spoon.

But then again, this wasn't just about me. I had a child to feed. He might be 18, and a little too judgy for my liking, but he was still my child. So I couldn't just blow this one off.

Even though I wanted to. A lot.

Let us begin.

Week Three, Night One: Chicken Bacon Chowder

I was PROUD of this one. I mean, it was exciting enough to think about consuming that I felt like I was back in the game. I cut up fried chicken tenders, I cut up fried bacon, I added bacon bits (the real ones, for class). I added my old standbys, garlic and green onions. I added a can of chicken broth, lots of sour cream, and a brick of cream cheese. Then I threw in some random stuff, like a little onion powder. I added shredded cheese later, because come on.

And it was amazing. I mean, to me, this was a slam dunk. I couldn't wait to see what Hunter scored it.

A seven. The little punk scored it a damn seven. Oh, I'm sorry, is chicken and bacon and cream cheese bad this week? How can I possibly keep up!?

Whatever. I loved it. And I decided I'd show him. The next night would be both chicken and bacon-free.

Week Three, Night Two: Cheeseburger Soup

I like cheeseburger soup, but what I never understood is why most recipes billed as cheeseburger soup have potatoes. There are no potatoes in cheeseburgers, amirite? Well. Maybe in fast food cheeseburgers, but nobody will ever know the true ingredients. Even when we think we do. The industry is full of lies, people.

So I made a cheeseburger soup that kind of turned into everything that looked good in my kitchen. I added hamburger and ground sausage both. I added like three different cheeses. One of them was a jar of "beer cheese" that I had recently found in the chip aisle at the store. I was pretty pumped, because I have this incredible Guinness and Cheddar fondue when I go to Springfield, and this was the closest thing Nevada has to it.

So yeah. It was largely meat and cheese, with, of course, a little garlic. And I cut up some tomatoes, because cheeseburgers have tomatoes sometimes. This was truly cheeseburger soup. It looked and smelled delicious. The problem was, I had allowed a little too much grease in when I added the meat. But sometimes you have to have a little grease in your life.
Hunter was working, so I took it to him. He took off the lid and said something like, whoa, how much garlic is in here?

There was like, half a spoon. I considered that the inclusion of beer cheese and garlic both may have been too much. Whatever. I ate some and thought it was great. He grudgingly decided it wasn't bad.

Here's where this whole thing goes south. I put some in a container to take to work. I left it in my car. I came back out to my car for a quick lunch, realized I had left it in the car, and thought, eh. I took it home, heated it up, ate it quickly, went back to work.

That night I had designated as leftover night, because we had leftovers. However, I felt a little guilty about that, so I went to Dairy Queen and got an Apple Pie Blizzard and a Pumpkin Pie Blizzard, because Dairy Queen had been billing this match-up as one of the most colossal in Blizzard history, and I had to know. (For the record, Hunter declared Pumpkin Pie the victor, and I remained undecided.)

About an hour later, I got really, really sick. The next morning, Hunter got even sicker. It turns out that he, too, had some of the cheeseburger soup. I could blame it on bad ice cream, but in my heart, I knew that it was the 'Crocking what did it.

Week Three, Night Four: Chicken Gyros

Screw the Crock. I made wraps. Cut up chicken, added spinach leaves, shredded cheese, Greek yogurt, and dill. Put it on flat wrap bread. Called it good. I took it to Hunter at work, wrapped in foil. He took one bite and said, "You MADE this?" incredulously.

I call that a win, and at the end of the day, isn't that what really matters?

So, while I have returned to the Crock tonight due to being seriously, horribly, head-cold-like sick, I think the challenge is close to over. It actually is, either way, as this begins Week Four, aka the "OHMYGODTHEENDISINSIGHT" week.

Week Two: Crocky Balboa

One of my greatest strengths is being realistic about my weaknesses. One of my greatest weaknesses is that I'm lousy on follow-through. I get super-excited about things, get started, then burn out quickly.

So I knew going in that Week Two was going to be the ultimate challenge in my crockery, especially since weekends are Crock Free.

Still, I sought out and pinned new Crock recipes enthusiastically enough, and went shopping for ingredients without grousing about it too loudly, so it was with that remaining glimmer of hope that I rolled up my sleeves and started throwing ingredients in as Week Two dawned.

Week Two, Night One: Chicken Burrito Bowls

I don't know why these are "Burrito" bowls, because there was not one hint of a tortilla. But it had the requisite Hunter-approved old standby ingredients: chicken and cream cheese. Also black beans, corn, and taco seasoning. Probably something else, but who has time to try to remember? Lack of time, as you may recall, is what made me Crock in the first place. And laziness (See? Told you I was realistic about my weaknesses).

Week Two, Night One was also the night of the day I impulsively became a Verizon customer for six hours before chickening out and taking several hundred dollars' worth of impulse buys back to the store and shamefacedly requesting a refund from the overly enthusiastic bodybuilder who waited on me. His name was Kip, which was so incongruous with his super-inflated muscles that it was hard to keep a straight face. It was harder for Hunter, who built Kip into his ratings system that night.

Chicken "Burrito" Bowl: Success.

Week Two, Night Two: Baked Potato Soup

I knew this was going to be a hard sell in the land of Hunter dream dinners, because he's not much on baked potato soup, and the name of this recipe left little to the imagination. He pretty much knew what was in store, and he wasn't excited about it. But what he didn't know was my plan to incorporate my super-secret secret ingredient: MORE BACON. I loaded the crap out of that thing. It was totally bacon'ed. And then I threw more green onions on the top because, you know, color. And I needed to get rid of them. Oh, and cheese. So much cheese. And sour cream.

Initially, he rated it one thing, and then remembered a critical part of Crock Pot Consumption: for God's sake, let it cool down. And when he did, oh, man.

Baked Potato Soup: SOUPER Good.

Week Two, Night Three: Pizza Pasta

I was apprehensive about this, because, for those of you keeping score at home, I had previously humiliated myself with a little something I called "Crockpasta." The memory was still fresh as I concocted this, which was bare-bones based off of a Pinterest recipe before I decided to build on it based on what sounded good and was also contained in my cabinets. Pizza pasta was the result.

I used garden rotini, because I'm (wrongly) convinced that it, unlike other pastas, has actual flavor. No matter, it's pizza-colored. Then I added both spaghetti and pizza sauces, ground sausage, pepperoni, Parmesan cheese, mozzarella, black olives, garlic, and mushrooms. Then I watched it like a damn hawk so it didn't turn black, like its pasta predecessor.

Hunter acted like this meal was the second coming. He almost rated it a perfect 10, then looked at me like I'd tried to pull over a fast one and informed me that if he gave me a perfect score, I would no longer have a goal. Still, we ate this like it was our last meal.

Pizza Pasta: Dangerously Delish.

Week Two, Night Four: Chicken and Dumplings

I have very, very fond memories of my mom's chicken and dumplings from my childhood. That's why I knew that this was going to be a disaster. No way could I top, or even approach, that perfection.

I shredded some chicken. Added chicken broth and cream of chicken soup. And cut up raw biscuit dough and threw it on top. Then I waited. Nervous. I had to leave for an hour to work out, and I just knew that was when things would go horribly wrong and the kitchen would somehow burn down and when we sifted through the charred remains, somehow the biscuits would still be raw. Don't even ask. I can't explain why the thoughts I have go through my head.

Anyway. Miraculously, it was awesome. It tasted of childhood, minus the disapproval and braces.

Chicken and Dumplings: Hello, 1980's!

And here is the Week Two Scorecard, because I knew you were curious:

Next Up: WEEK THREE, or the Week When it Became Not That Fun.

What a Crock.

That's the name of the Pinterest board I have that deals exclusively with Crock Pot recipes. It's also what started me on the 30 Day Crock Pot Challenge, which was begun for the sole reason that Crock Pot cooking was made for someone like me: that is to say, someone who works a lot and feels vaguely guilty about not providing food for others in the household.

It went next-level when I realized that, sure, I pinned these Crock Pot recipes, but I had never owned my very own, as in 100% Jen-style owned, my own Crock Pot. I was like, yeah, right, what am I, Nelson Rockefeller? What do those cost, like 200 bucks?

As it turned out, I got a very respectable-looking (read: shiny) Crock for like, $24.99. It may have been $29.99. Who has time to check these days? If I had time to check that stuff, I'd probably have time to make an extensive, multi-course dinner, amirite? AMI!?

But I digress.

I can only eat so many peanut butter sandwiches (seriously, get the Peter Pan with Honey, and you don't even have to thank me. The world needs to know.) before I remember that I'm not the only one who lives in the house, and I don't want anyone else hogging my peanut butter. That eventually meant that I needed to get with the program and figure out some actual dinners.

You see, my specialty has always been, specifically and pretty much exclusively, baked desserts. Because I love them. Cakes, cookies, cobblers, assorted fruity, sweetened breads, and pies have always been my forte. They're delicious in every single stage, which puts them far above and beyond entrees.

One of the two to five dishes I had mastered in my time as a lackluster maker of dinners was Crock Pot lasagna, so that was my starting point. Then I thought, hey, remember that Pinterest board you have that's all about the Crock? Then I broached the subject with Hunter by casually asking him how he felt about white chili.

He was super pumped, and then took it extreme-style, saying that we had to ONLY have meals from the Crock Pot for the next 30 days. I negotiated, and it was altered to we (as in, I) could only prepare Crock Pot-based dinners for the next 30 days. Any other meal, we could slam sandwich-style, or just eat Monster Slim Jims, or whatev.

Meal Number One: White Chili

It called for white corn, which I could not for the life of me find. I tried to pass off hominy as white corn, which did not fool Hunter at all. I also broke our can opener trying to prepare this meal, which led to a mini breakdown and me briefly but passionately stabbing the top of a can of beans with a knife before realizing that 1) I was probably going to hurt myself and 2) It wasn't working.

I now own three can openers.

Meal One:

It earned a 9/10 on the Hunter Scale of Crock Judgment.

Meal Two: Chicken Bacon Ranch Breasts

This started as a recipe from Pinterest that pretty much involved chicken breasts, butter, and a lot of ranch dressing mix. I decided that looked kind of boring, and wrapped each chicken breast in bacon, then threw a bunch of green onions on top. It made the whole thing more colorful, anyway.

Where I messed up: temp too high, for too long. The chicken basically fell apart. Hunter initially rated this a 6 out of 10, which was harsh by my estimation, because I have absolutely no taste in food. I will eat out of a trash can, and I have, many times (if the candy is individually wrapped, is it really inedible?), so to me, it was pretty good.

He later changed his rating to a number that was a hybrid of 6 and 7, because, as he said, it was pretty good once it had simmered itself into a soup after several hours.

Meal Two:

Meal Three: Crockpasta

Crockpasta was my fancy name for what would have been crock pot lasagna if I had lasagna noodles on hand.

I did not. What I did have was rigatoni. But I had the other ingredients, so I thought hey, who cares?
I threw it together in the morning, thinking it would be just about perfectly done when Hunter got home from school.

I put it on high.

He came home from school. Then he left again. I say that he didn't check it, he says that he did and it wasn't done.

What ended up happening was that it sat, on high, for a couple of hours too long. And there was pasta involved. And sauce.

The official rating on the Scale of Crock Judgment said it all: "What happened?"

I still ate all of the sausage, in shame, directly from the Crock Pot, with a spoon because it was closer. I didn't even have the dignity to get a fork.

There is no picture of crockpasta, and justifiably so.

Meal Four: Chicken Cordon Bleu

Chicken Cordon Bleu was one of my staples in the tiny, tiny collection of dinners that I could make without having to remember ingredients or look anything up. That's because it's pretty much the easiest thing ever.

However, I had never made it in the Crock. I always baked it, in a covered dish. There were toothpicks involved.

I asked Hunter, and he remained firm on the rule that the 30 day Crock Pot Challenge meant that every dinner had to be in the Crock Pot.

I considered baking it, then dumping it in the Crock and saying, "Welp, all done!"

It would have probably worked. But I would know I was a big, fat cheater.

Turns out it was easier in the Crock Pot. Chicken, ham steak, Swiss cheese, dump sauce over it, walk away.

This time, the chicken didn't fall apart. I was pumped.

It tasted great. I became more pumped.

Hunter was less enthused.

"It probably would have been better, but why Swiss cheese?"

Hey, dummy. Why don't you look up what chicken cordon bleu is and then just admit I was right and you were wrong at any point after that, mmkay? Thanks.

Still, though, it rated "One Chicken" in the Mr. Cordon scale, which is a scale Hunter made up specifically for this dish. The key at the bottom of the white board told me that one chicken = great job.

Kids.

To the untrained eye, it's a lot of Swiss cheese.

Meal Five: Chicken Enchilada Soup

After the humiliation of Crockpasta and the lackluster response to Chicken Cordon Bleu, I wasn't really feeling it the next night. But I had green chilies, and green salsa, and chicken, and cream cheese, and green onions, and regular cheese, and so I threw it all in and thought, come on. I'm due here.

As it happens, pretty much any meal with chicken and cream cheese is a slam dunk in the Crock Pot Scale of Judgment, and not only did this one coast in with a rating of "HELL. YES.", Hunter also penciled it in for the next night's dinner.

We took the weekend off after all of that excitement. Next up: WEEK TWO!

The Scale of Crock Pot Judgment: