Shrimp and Wild Rice Casserole episode:
Honestly, I felt so deflated after this experience that I sort of wanted to erase it from my mind. But I didn’t want to let you people down so here goes…
The truth is, I’d probably gotten a little too cocky about my culinary delights. I successfully made king ranch mac n cheese and this open faced pesto shrimp sandwich thing that was basically a masterpiece. I was feeling invincible in the kitchen.
And that’s when the nasty kitchen fairies getcha.
On Sunday I had Charlie by myself because Paul was working. Our whole house stayed clean all day long except for one little area in the living room. Until cooking time. I had everything timed perfecty with Paul’s arrival. Except I didn’t factor in my 1 year old who likes to either crawl down the hall and shut himself into bedrooms or pull everything out of the cabinet drawers as well as pull off every magnet on the refrigerator, the accidental purchase of unpeeled shrimp or the early arrival of my husband. So I peeled and peeled and kept accidentally putting the good stuff in the trash and the bad stuff in the bowl. Meanwhile Charlie showcased his trashy side by trying to lick the trash can. I moved the trash to the countertop so Charlie headed down the hall to attempt to close himself into one bedroom or another. Unfortunately for him all the doors were closed which left Charlie with no other choice but to pull the snap ware out of the cabinet. That’s fine but when he moved on to the heart shaped ceramic baking dish and it broke I had to break out the big guns and let him sit in his high hair with an after dinner snack of popcorn and sushi. Kidding. It was a teething biscuit. This is when Paul got home to what I’m sure looked like an explosion of crap.
A craplosion.
Things settled down from there and Paul really sweetly cleaned the mess up while I finished making dinner. Twice while I was cooking Paul asked me what was in the dish and twice I told him, “shrimp, RICE, soup, blah blah blah.” 45 minutes later I pulled a very liquid version of our meal out of the oven and cursed the magazine it came from for always making food look better in their photos.

It wasn’t until halfway through dinner when Paul once again asked me what was in it and again I began telling him, “shrimp, RICE, blah blah blah” that I realized I’d left the ding dang rice out.