The terrible awful summer supper

I recently decided to look for new recipes with the intent to find some new and wonderful things for family dinners. It took me very little time to find out I hate looking for recipes. I hate looking online, in cook books and on Pinterest. It's exactly the same as looking for a needle in a haystack. And if I see one strange ingredient, I bail on the whole thing. It's a problem. Brown sugar is one ingredient that can make me give up quick. Also I've discovered I hate chopping things, making lists for recipes and stirring things on the stove. All necessary for making a meal. Well, over a few weeks I've looked on websites and pinned on Pinterest (mostly desserts) and so far I've made three Pinterest recipes. And so far everything has sucked. Which brings me to last night. After much concern and soul searching I finally chose penne pasta with roasted asparagus tossed with a balsamic reduction sauce (even though one ingredient was brown sugar.) 

Now when I first read the recipe I THOUGHT it said one pound of butter and I was outraged.....OK, not really outraged but shocked at the amount of butter. Until....I looked at the recipe again and discovered in fact it was one pound of asparagus and only one stick of butter. I also hate misreading recipes. So after the reread, I decided to make it. Went to the store on Monday night, thought I bought all the necessary ingredients. Forgot to buy asparagus. Went back to buy asparagus. Tuesday Owen and I began the process. Actually I got Emma to roast the asparagus (dodged that bullet) and now all we had to do was reduce, add brown sugar....frightening....and supper was gonna be AWESOME! (Sing it!) Something new and delicious. After the balsamic was getting reduced I went to get my brown sugar. Unbelievable. No brown sugar. Owen offered to go. If you're counting, that's three trips to the store for this one meal. Back home with the BS (hmmm foreshadowing), pasta's cooking, sauce is ready, asparagus is ready, Thankfully, John made a big salad to have with the meal. (One more bullet dodged). Pasta's done! Time to assemble the delicious new favorite!  Drain pasta, add asparagus, add sauce, add butter, add parmesan slivers, salt and pepper. Oh crap! I just now realized I forgot to add salt! Oh well. 

At this point everyone was hopeful. But with one noodle for tasting, my countenance fell. And I sort of wanted to throw it in the trash. But! I tried to power through and actually put some in a bowl, while serving myself a heaping bowl of salad...hoping it would be my saving grace. Emma took one bite and announced, "I don't like it at all." Shut. Up. There are others I want to eat this slop. Owen loaded a bowl and declared it, "tolerable." Caitlin made a valiant effort at choking hers down, and Olivia didn't even try. With the advance notice from blabber mouth Emma, she walked away while heaving a huge sigh of relief for it never crossing her lips. John, also known as Joey from friends when it comes to food, announced, "I like it!" After attempting three more bites, I gave mine to John. 

IT WAS SO BAD. 

Thankfully, I turned my focus to my wonderful salad and homegrown tomato. Salad and tomato never lets me down. I took a few bites and thought the balsamic slop had affected my pallet. Something was off. That tomato was terrible. SOMETHING tasted like fertilizer. Had to be the tomato. I'm getting more depressed with each bite. I mean, it was SO BAD! Finally Caitlin says, "This salad tastes weird." And I'm all like, "Thank you!! I thought I was eating fertilizer." Well, back up Bessie, on my first trip to the store I bought some salad greens, you know the cute colored lettuces and stuff? WELL! After closer inspection of the box of cute colored lettuces it was discovered I'd bought herb salad greens and not the cute lettuces. WIth the main offender being cilantro! I. HATE. CILANTRO. HATE. And now I hate it more. By the time this info came to light, I'd choked about half my salad down, but after that revelation, I called it. Threw the salad away. Immediately went to my computer and UNPINNED the nasty, disgusting, lying, cheating recipe and went for ice cream. Because the rule is, if supper sucks, you get ice cream. Even if you've had some snickers bites earlier in the day. 

Today we had ham sandwiches for supper. DELICIOUS! And everyone thought so. You just can't go wrong with some ham and some not tasting like fertilizer tomato and some mayo that's really miracle whip and plain old fashioned lettuce. It was like having a turkey dinner, only it was a ham sandwich. 

So the moral to the story about the bad summer supper is, if you come across that penne pasta recipe on Pinterest, KEEP SCROLLING and no one will get hurt. OR, go ahead and make it knowing there's always ice cream for the saddened supper maker. 

And that's the story of the bad summer supper that will NEVER be forgotten. 

The end.

All of this was true and accurate.