I have concocted again.

A can of condensed cream of chicken soup, a couple pounds of chicken thighs, a half jar of tandoori paste, and a couple cups of pureed canned peaches. All in the crock pot. And it was really good. Not just edible, not “okay”, but great - second helpings great! And you can’t make out any cream base soup or fruit at all….it tastes a little Indian, with the curry tandoori going on.

Now what was I thinking?? Well, it’s hard to say sometimes. Not much could top my Freak Soup. I don’t worry too much, because no one else has to eat what I concoct-but I usually like it so I forge ahead. So let’s try to decipher the code.

“Okay, I have lots of jars of marinades and pastes and sauces, so I’ll use some up. Less clutter, less spending, all that good stuff. What can I put sauce on? I’ll try the chicken thighs I bought, because they are a lot cheaper, and I’ll see if I can get over my fear of cooking meat. Okay, chicken thighs and ...what jar do I use? How about this tandoori thing, it’s in front. There we go; thighs and paste in a pot. Looks dry…some water, good. Now it’s too thin and runny looking, how to handle this….. What cans need to be used up? Beets? No, not beets….cream of chicken sounds better. It’ll add creaminess, smoothness. Good. Anything else? Well, chutney is sometimes used with curry…should I stick some fruit in here? Banana? No, not banana. I know, I’ll puree some canned peaches and dump that in. And the rest of the peaches I’ll throw in cream of wheat. Okay, lid is on, and I’m crossing my fingers.”

Now, with my oddball meals, what I do is, if all the ingredients separately are ones My Guy will eat, I make the concoction, taste it, if it tastes good ask him to taste it, and then if he likes it admit the ingredients. Last night he said, “Smells like barbecue.” I said, “Oh, no, not even close. After you taste it tomorrow I’ll tell ya.” Today he pulled the meat off the bone and made rice. Then he tasted, liked, learned the ingredients, shrugged, and ate up. And had seconds. And said it was really good.

So not only did we have a great meal out of the pantry from odds and ends, we made progress on the fear of meat front. After the meat cooked, My Guy easily pulled the meat of the bones and stuck the meat back into he-knew-not-what; we hadn’t been sure how that would work. Now I can stop using chicken breast and use thighs for any crockpot dish from now on. The meat was more flavorful, the fat was easy to skim, and thighs are so much cheaper than breasts.

Whoo hoo!