I Fought the Soup and the Soup Won

Hello. My name is Lisa and I am Cooking-Challenged.

This realization is one that has actually been simmering - pardon the pun - since the first months of my married life. The Quiche Incident is one that will forever be remembered in McKay Family Lore. Let's just say it involved some very underdone eggs in a graham cracker crust. In my defense, when a recipe says 'pie crust', it should specify the particular flavor or lack thereof required to make the finished result edible. I'm just saying.

Clarity, recipe people. It is essential.

Now that you have a bit of back story I can now proceed with telling you about my Harry and David's Chicken Enchilada Soup Fiesta Fiasco.
Harry and David's has this signature Pepper and Onion Relish that makes the most wonderful cream cheese dip appetizer so anytime I am near the store, I generally buy a jar or seven. However, this time there was an extra treat on top of the jar - a recipe for Chicken Enchilada Soup. I read over the recipe and it sounded somewhat simple so, seeing as how I am already guilt-ridden over the lack of home cooking here lately, I decided I would WOW my family with a batch.

Here's where the trouble began. The recipe said I needed 'cream'. No other explanation, just cream. When I think cream, I think dairy so I went to the Dairy Dept. and bought cream - Heavy Whipping Cream.

I got home, started making the soup and hubs came in. I should have known disaster was brewing when the first thing he said when he hit the door was, "What smells like a skunk?" Retaining my Preacher Wife composure, I lovingly explained it was the garlic in the soup. He came in to the kitchen, saw my cream, and said, "That's not the kind of cream you use for cooking is it?" I not so lovingly told him to get out of the kitchen and that obviously he knew nothing about cooking. I then snuck to call his sister who confirmed I indeed had the wrong thing. Rats.

I was not about to let this little set back keep me from this great soup so, deciding I could get the right cream the next day, I put the beginnings in the fridge and took the kids to the burger joint for supper. The next day, I went to the store and bought Pet Milk like my SIL instructed. Note here: Nowhere on the can does it say 'cream'. How's a girl to know? Really, how??

To make a long story endless, I went home, pulled out the soup, and added the cream. My thought was, "Wow, this looks awfully milky. I read the recipe again and realized, oh the horror, I had misread the amount and instead of 1/2 a cup, I had added 1 1/2 cups times two for the doubled recipe. The result? 3 TIMES the amount of cream I needed. The only way to fix it at this point was to triple all the other ingredients which would require returning to the store and also using my last jar of relish which I knew I could get no more of for a few months. So I did what I had vowed I would never do - I quit.

Have you ever tried so incredibly hard to accomplish something, to resist temptation, to make amends and find no matter what you did, it still turned out badly? I'm reminded of Peter who experienced this very thing. Peter with the foot-shaped mouth. Peter who removed people from their ears. Peter who denied Christ when he swore that would never happen.

We can learn an important lesson from Peter's retreat to fish after Jesus' death - sometimes the best thing we can do after failure is back off and regroup before we try again. The benefits are a fresh perspective, fresh information, and fresh faith. Peter returned to pen 1st and 2nd Peter which in my estimation are some of the richest books of the New Testament. What a come back!

So back to my soup - petty compared to what some of you are experiencing but it is a great visual for me as to the importance of trying again! Next time, I'll remember what I've learned from my mistakes and work out all the kinks beforehand.

And hopefully my hubby will be none the wiser.





Please come visit my personal blog, The Preacher's Wife.