Well, this post is going to be a little different than most of my Monday, “Saturday Night” posts. If you live in or around Peoria, you know we got a big-ass snowstorm that started on Friday night and went all the way into Saturday night and it eventually dumped about a foot of snow in Central Illinois. I had to go to work about seven hours early because I had to cover for someone who doesn’t live in Peoria and couldn’t get in to work because the roads were treacherous. So it was a long day.
I was hoping to go home after work and take an Uber to a restaurant but after a horrific and slippery ride home, I decided I would order a pizza and have it delivered to the MBIP World Headquarters. I’ve never done that and thought it might be fun to take of picture of the delivery person and enjoy a quiet night at home while the snowstorm raged on outside.
I first called Monical’s Pizza, because I like their pizza and they’re not far from where the MBIP World Headquarters is located. A woman answered and she said they weren’t doing any deliveries and that they were closing in about an hour because of the weather. Shit. So I went online...
I Googled pizza delivery in Peoria and Domino’s came up. It said they were delivering till 1AM, so I placed an order for a Buffalo Chicken Pizza, and a half dozen Mango Habanero Wings. I hadn’t eaten all day and was starving like you know who!
After you place the order they have a handy-dandy tracker where you can watch as your order is made and then shipped out. My tracker was stuck on prep for about a half an hour and I was wondering why it was taking so long. Then my phone rang and it was the manager of the store calling to tell me that they were canceling all deliveries due to the weather. He apologized and was really nice about it but that didn’t do my growling stomach any good.
I thought about driving down to Monical’s Pizza and picking up a pizza and bringing it back. They’re just down the road, so I thought I’d tough it out and take another ride in the snowstorm. I bundled up, went outside and took a look around at the slick, white mess and decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. It was a winter nightmare out there and I wasn’t going to risk my neck and/or wrecking the MBIP Mobile over a Saturday night pizza dinner.
Oh and is it me, or does it bug you when people put their windshield wipers up like that? It always bothers me when I see that. It never fails to fill me up with complete hatred for the world and those who inhabit it. Okay, let’s keep moving along here.
So I went back inside and wandered over to the MBIP World Headquarters kitchen area. I was wishing I still had the gift basket that my friends Diane and Chuck gave me. It was filled with edible goodies, but I took it into work to share with my co-workers. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be generous! Oh well, time to improvise!
I don’t keep a lot of food around here, but I usually have a few canned goods in this cabinet. I honestly don’t know what’s back here, so this is a real Let’s Make A Deal moment as I open door number one to see what’s behind it! I feel just like Carol Merrill!
Okay, not a lot to work with but there are four cans behind the door: A can of Swanson’s Chicken Breast Chunks, mushrooms, Campbell’s Chunky Chicken Noodle soup and a can of corn.
I chose everything except the corn. When you add corn to a dish it gives it a somewhat vomitized look and we don’t need that. Okay, time to start cooking our improvised Saturday night meal. One thing we know for sure, it will be chunky and there will be chicken!
We’ll cook it on the stove top in my trusty green skillet that I’ve had for over a half a dozen years now.
As you can see, the MBIP refrigerator is pretty much comprised of all liquid ingredients. I do have one type of solid product and that’s ice in the freezer that sits in a tray next to a bottle of vodka.
I thought I’d make a sauce for the base of tonight’s dinner and I chose four items to make it out of. From the left we have: Sandwich Pal Sweet and Spicy Mustard, Sweet Baby Ray’s Buffalo Wing Sauce, Sweet Baby Ray’s Dipping Sauce and Newman’s Own Light Balsamic Vinegar Salad Dressing.
Just like a Food Network show, here we go! I’m adding the different ingredients for the base sauce plus a generous sprinkling of pepper and a few shakes of minced onion. Look at that colorful mixture!
And yes, that’s a plastic fork. I’ve used plastic forks ever since I lost my regular one. I still wonder what the fuck happened to that forking thing!
Here it is after I’ve mixed it all together over a medium-low heat. It’s turned into a brown base sauce and it tastes great! It’s a nice mix of flavors and the heat from the Buffalo Wing Sauce has given it just a little spice and kick.
Now I add the chicken and mushrooms and while that’s heating up, I drained the soup out of the Chunky Chicken Soup because that would’ve been too much liquid with the base sauce. I added the pasta and vegetables for the soup and we have a pretty decent looking little stew concoction brewing up here!
I added a little more pepper and it actually looks and smells fantastic! By now I’m completely famished so it’s time to dig in and eat it right out of the skillet!
This was quite a pleasant surprise because it’s actually a delicious skillet dish! Of course the fact that all I’ve had to eat all day is a small bag of potato chips and a piece of cake at work factors into the equation, but I’m pretty proud of tonight’s improvised dinner. And now what should we have for dessert?
I mentioned I took my gift basket that Chuck and Diane gave me last week into work, but there were four bottles of Budweiser that I kept for myself! A perfect ending to a nice Saturday Snowstorm dinner! Thanks again to Chuck and Diane and cheers from the MBIP World Headquarters on a snowy Saturday evening!
Related Post: Some Days You Just Need To Go Get A Butch’s Frozen Pizza, Eat It And Then Just Shut The Fuck Up.