The Rice-A-Roni Saved Me!

I'm actually quite embarrassed to blog about this, and I considered keeping it my little secret, but if my story can help someone else, I feel it my duty to bare my soul and share it. Basically, the rice-a-roni saved me. Not in a life and death sorta way, but like in a "cover my main dish in rice-a-roni and maybe he won't notice he is eating clumps of corn starch" way. It all started tonight when David said he was hungry for dinner, even though I cooked a fantastic homemade tortilla soup only a few hours before as a late lunch. Being the wife that I am, I told him I would "whip" something up, and that is far more true than the saying goes! Being that we are on a bit of a grocery budget with the pending new mortgage, I found some leftover ham in the'fridge and decided to make good use of it. It is about 9:17 p.m. by the way, and organizing ribbon, color coordinating my sock drawer, and breathing mold in the garage all day has taken its toll on my judgement. This ham is solid- like not pre sliced- and boneless. I remembered seeing Rachael Ray cook something up that was Hawaiian or Polynesian in nature once. It was a ham dish and looked so fast and easy. Though I had no recipe on hand, I knew I could do it. I started the rice-a-roni, green beans, and went about making the Hawaiian marinade. I opened two cans of pineapple tidbits and heated them in a skillet. It didn't look anything remotely like Rachael Ray's version, so I kept adding- brown sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon. Hmmmm... smells good, but so thin. What to do? Then it hit me! Add corn starch. Here's the problem- I have never used corn starch in my life. David has a stir fry he makes, and I have seen him use it to make a gravy of some sort, but I've never actually made it because it is his "claim to fame" and I wouldn't want to be on his turf like that. I opened the box and manually dumped in about a 1/2 cup right into the hot skillet full of pineapple goodies. Well, as you can imagine, it formed hard balls of white clumps, wouldn't mix, and started to boil into some sort of jelly- or jello, give or take! I tried my best to mash it, mix it, stir it up, but it just wouldn't have any of that. I added a whole can of chicken broth folks, and it still was thick enough to smear on dinner rolls. In my desperation I threw it off the stove and opened another can of pineapple (note to self: buy more pineapple; you used it all.) Everything else was done, so I thought I would make our plates and serve him restaurant style. I am the master of deceit when it comes to "presentation", so I dug the ham out of the slop, poured the new pineapple over it and packed the rice-a-roni around it tighter than white on rice. When David emerged from his "man room" downstairs, he asked what we were having and I said Rachael Ray's Hawaiian marinated ham. Well, needless to say, he ate it without saying a word, though I know he must have found the cornstarch balls a bit flavorless. He kissed me on the head, and retreated back into his room to drill and hammer, leaving me with another dilemma. Will the garbage disposal eat this? How am I going to get this pan clean? To make a long story short, I feel as if I should apologize to poor Miss. Ray. David doesn't think highly of her, and wonders how her cookbooks have sold over a million copies. Sorry, Rachael.