Elizabeth’s Journal

Good Birthday

I had a lovely day on Friday when I turned 35—thanks to all who sent happy wishes, lovely cards, marvelous presents. The whole day felt quite special, and as I said to Dale in the evening, it’s quite nice to feel like I’m in a good place in my life on my birthday.

One of my pressies was a 7-quart slow cooker from Mom and Dad. I had not previously known they came this large, and I think this is the only brand that makes one so huge (as a matter of fact, they don’t even advertise it on their own web site—I had to link to the place Mom bought it from). I borrowed Jennifer’s new Slow Cooker cookbook and made the Sunday Ham with Lemon and Ginger. Two small things, though—Dale did the shopping yesterday as I was a little overwhelmed with chores, and it ended up that it would have been easier if I’d gone as I was then stuck with the kiddoes at dinnertime, always a little crazy, and also it took him 6-7 phone calls to find out where things were, exactly what I wanted, etc. So this morning I looked at the ham he bought—I’d requested a 3-lb. one—to make sure all the other ingredients would be the right proportions, and it was an 8.91-lb ham! For the two of us! Then I nearly fainted when I saw that it had cost $45. I think next time I’ll do the shopping no matter how tired I am :-). But the ham came out quite nice, and it fit perfectly in my gargantuan slow cooker . . . wouldn’t have fit in a 6-quart.

Tomorrow I’m going to make a chicken dish in it (chicken in a wine sauce with carrots). Hopefully it too will be good, because it’s going to make lots of leftovers! Which is, of course, the point.