Monday Confessional

Alternative title: Tales of a Scatterbrained Housewife.

2nd alternative title: Jodi really knows how to drag out a story.

Saturday evening we were invited to a potluck style bbq at our friend's beautiful new home and the morning of I decided I wanted to make my go-to potluck dish: summer rice. (It's the bomb - recipe below). After checking the pantry and fridge to see if I had everything I needed, I made myself a little list I like to call "things I was supposed to buy while out grocery shopping but forgot", and this list included sour cream and diced green chilies.

I then went out to lunch at Sweet Tomatoes with my friend Sairaina (pictured above), forgot all about my little shopping list, and it wasn't until I was back home again and it was 3 pm that I realized it. No worries, the bbq wasn't until 6 pm, I'd just run to the store. Well wouldn't you know, Russ just so happened to need to run to town for something himself and so I grabbed this opportunity to let him get my items while I took a little siesta with Blake instead.

(Always pick the nap. It could be my life motto.)

An hour and a half later I got up to cook my rice, and when it was done and I still hadn't heard from Russ, I sent him a text message to find out if my diced chilies were ever going to make it home to me. To which he replied "uh oh, I'm working outside. I've been back for half an hour and totally forgot to get them. Sorry!".

Well this was a real bummer. I'd already cooked my rice and now it was 5:15 pm. So I called the little store attached to the country gas station 4 minutes from our house and asked if they by chance had a can of hugely over-priced green chilies on their shelf. Miracle of miracles, they said yes. Salvation! Away I went. Only to discover it had been a HORRIBLE LIE, they were out.

(In situations like this I want to angrily suggest to people that perhaps they should WALK OVER TO THE SHELF AND CHECK before making empty promises of diced green chilies that can't be kept, but instead I said a lame, "well that's a bummer", and frowned to show my disapproval.)

Dilemma: do I now drive the 8 minutes into town? Or just bag it and bring chips instead? I'm sure any sane person would have bagged it but oh no, I was committed now. Into town I drove, picking up my chilies and returning home at 5:50 pm with the optimistic hope of throwing it all together and being out the door again in 15 minutes (ha ha HA). So into the bowl of cooked rice they went and then I opened my fridge and realized:

THE SOUR CREAM!

Two stores and half an hour of driving around, and I'd forgotten all about the other missing ingredient from my recipe! And this is why we showed up 20 minutes late to the bbq with nothing but a bag of chips and a quickly heated up can of Bush's baked grillin' beans to our name.

(By the by, we had a lovely time.)

Now fast forward to last night, when I decided I better do something with this rice and chilies still sitting covered up on my counter. I ended up driving to the store again so I could at least make the dish and freeze it for a future date. I bought the sour cream and a few other items, came home to put them away in my fridge, moved aside something in the way to make room, and what do I find?

A 3/4 full tub of sour cream that had been there the whole time.

UGGGHHHHHHHHHH.

On the bright side, if you invite me to a bbq in the near future, I have the perfect thing to bring, just waiting to be heated up!

Recipe: Summer Rice
3 cups cooked white rice

1 4 oz can diced green chilies

1 small firm Roma tomato, diced

2 cups shredded cheese

2/3 cup sour cream

1/3 cup mayonaise

1/2 tsp onion salt

freshly ground black pepper to taste

Mix ingredients together and bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees, or heat in microwave for 6 minutes.
(I usually double the recipe for big groups - it's a crowd-pleaser!)