Same Food, New Recipe

Our experience with having household help has had its stressful moments, but is has also had some very funny ones as well.




Helen, my very sweet and competent maid, also does all of our cooking. She makes a wonderful Lasagna, and even Landon will eat her tacos! Brennan loves any type pasta with her spaghetti sauce, and she has learned to make Poppy Seed Chicken, and even Jambalya. She can follow any recipe, and is very careful to remember any special requests for the next time.




She previously worked for a German family, and when I asked her what she knew how to make, Beef Strogonoff was one of her answers. Since we like it as well, I decided to let her make it for us. What I didn't realize was that there is more than 1 way to make it, and I will never forget our faces, when she placed before us a huge platter of Beef Stroganoff made with large chunks of dill pickles! Of course Steve and Brennan, who hate pickles and won't eat anything made with them, would not even touch it! Since I did not want to hurt Helen's feelings, and because I never even knew you could cook will dill pickles, I ate as much as I could manage, washing it down with tons of water. I have to admit throwing the remainder in the trash when she was on her day off that weekend, and we have not asked her to make it again. I am sure she wonders why.




Recently Helen asked if I would like for her to "cook for me" something to go along with the main course for dinner. What she made looked kind of like au gratin potatoes, and we were very excited until I scooped out a spoonful and realized that there was tuna in the bottom! Now I personally love tuna, and had no problem with it, but of course neither Steve, Brennan nor Landon would touch it, so once again I was the only one to try it. I am not really sure what else she put in it, maybe sour cream or some type of yogurt, but I will be throwing it in the trash this weekend.