Holiday Stress

 A few weeks ago, my friend Bonnie showed up at my front door with coffee and donuts from Tim Horton's and a horrified look on her face.  "Come on in Bonnie*, what's wrong?"   We settled in at the dining room table, and she said "My family is having a homemade Christmas this year."  Bonnie reached for a donut.  "Oh,  that sounds nice!"  I was relieved for a second, "Oh wait, do you have to cook?"  Bonnie looked at me with sad eyes. "Yes, and it's not allowed to be premade, store bought, or  out of a box.  They are doing this on purpose.  My family hates me! Especially my sister, Betty-Martha-Stewart!* This was her idea! She wants me to look bad again!"  She said bitterly as she brushed crumbs and powdered sugar off her chest furiously. For those that don't know, Bonnie could be a contender as the worst cook in the state, maybe even the country.

"Your family doesn't hate you."  I said automatically.. "I can help you with this.  We can find easy, foolproof recipes, and you'll be fine. What are you supposed to make?"  I smiled reassuringly.

"My assignment is a soup AND a dessert!  Everyone is bringing  soup and either an appetizer or a dessert, I got dessert.  How am I supposed to make a dessert that's not out of a box?  I didn't even know there was such a thing!"

We googled "easy soup recipes" and  "no bake desserts" (For those of you new to this blog, Bonnie uses her oven for storage) and came up with a game plan where she would only have to cheat a little. 

The party was over the weekend, so on Monday,  I called Bonnie to see how it went.  Bonnie sounded upbeat.  "It started out bad because I forgot to plug in the crockpot."(I had let her borrow mine, and had explained what it was, and how it worked.)  We had planned a fool-proof  spicy tomato soup where basically, everything was dumped in to the pot, heated, and then garnished with tortilla chips.  "Oh" I said "You mean when you got there?"  "No" she said, "I mean I forgot to plug it in period. It worked out though,  because everyone started dipping their chips into it right away. They just  thought  I made a ton of salsa. My nephew even asked for the recipe!" Bonnie marveled.

 "Well, hey  that's just great!" I said, "and the dessert?" We had come up with a trifle recipe.  This is where we cheated with a store bought angel food cake.  We decided that nobody would call her on it, and that actually baking something was too risky. We couldn't chance burning down her house during the Christmas season.  Bonnie said,  "Well, I decided to double up the whipped cream, because who doesn't like whipped cream, I probably should've beat it longer because it was a little watery, but I was getting so tired of stirring! "Did you use mixer?" I asked. "No. What's that?" Bonnie asked.  "Never mind, go on." I said.  So Bonnie continued. "So then,  I also decided to put it all together ahead of time, so I wouldn't need to bother with it once we were at the party.  I stuffed it in the refrigerator as soon as we got there and figured it would be ok."   I mentally groaned.  "How did that go?"  I asked.  "Great!" she said enthusiastically.  They thought I made  dessert soup on purpose!" Bonnie paused to take a breath, and then continued.

"Betty made a  flaming baked Alaska in the shape of a Christmas Tree! She was pissed because everyone  seemed to like my dessert more, or maybe the were just tired of her showing off all the time! Betty made us turn off all the lights when she brought her dessert out!  They said I was clever to make an appetizer, soup, and a dessert in two dishes.  They didn't know I had screwed up everything!"  Bonnie sounded so happy!

this is how Bonnie's trifle was supposed to look

"I'm sure Betty wasn't mad." I said.  Betty is usually a very nice woman. I'm friends with her too.

"Really?" said Bonnie "On our way out,  Betty said "Wow! Nice Job. What made you think to put cold salsa in a crockpot?" she said it kind of snotty, so I got a little flustered and told her it was your idea."

"And there's more." said Bonnie. "They want to do this again next year! I told Bobby* (her husband) that we're going on a cruise instead! I'm not going through this stress again! I really don't know how people do this every year!"




*not their real names