Food: I know what boys like

The Husband and I like hanging out with other married couples. We've sort of fallen into the habit of having dinner with our friends K and J once a month, either at our place or theirs. This month was our turn, so we had them over and I made chicken paprikash. K has a very Polish background and I grew up in a super Polish/Ukranian town, so we both know from hearty peasant food and have a great time talking about pierogis or kielbasa or other tasty things, so when I decided to make paprikash I was really playing to him. Especially when you consider J hates mushrooms.

The recipe I used was from a local food blogger. I'd made it once before and the Husband loved it. It's hearty, it makes a lot and it calls for a pint of sour cream. How can you go wrong with that? Ha ha ha. As has been mentioned before, I should have READ AHEAD!!! tattooed on my forearm. While I had made the recipe before, I totally forgot the "Let cook for one hour" step. Heh. When we got home from work I though oh, we have an hour, no problem. I had the Husband start with the mushroom, onion and garlic cooking and I cut up the chicken and tossed it with the flour and spices. I don't know why, but whenever I put something through a flour dredge it takes me twice as much flour as the recipe calls for and I never remember that so halfway through the dredging I had the obligatory "put more flour in the dish" moment while the Husband browned the chicken pieces. Somewhere in the middle of all that K and J showed up, so I informed them my lack of forethought meant they were going to have to wait for dinner.

Once dinner was simmering on the stove I did have my only moment of forward thinking and started on dessert. Dessert was chocolate cupcakes with melty centers, recipe taken from my page a day cupcake calendar. The recipe had you melt the chocolate and butter together, then let it cool. The cupcakes needed to cook for 20 minutes, then sit for five, then be served immediately, so I did the figuring and got everything ready to put them in the over when we sat down to dinner. That actually worked out well, and the Husband made the noodles to go with dinner while I was doing that, so we were just about ready to sit down to dinner when I realized I forgot the vegetables. Argh! I can not be organized!

Dinner went well. J picked out the mushrooms and handed them around to everyone. Everyone loved the paprikash and had second helpings, so I figure it was a success. J made a comment I hadn't even considered- chicken paprikash is a lot like beef stroganoff. There's a sour cream based sauce, chunks of meat, mushrooms, you eat it with noodles, relatively slow cooked, huh. Around the end of dinner the timer for the cupcakes went off so I opened the over door. They didn't look done so I muttered "stupid oven" and let them go for a few more minutes. About three minutes later, I realized oh! They're not supposed to be done! Crap! The cupcakes that were on the edges of the tray didn't have the melty centers, but the ones more toward the middle did. It didn't matter, everyone seemed happy and ate a bunch.
All in all, it was a nice dinner with friends. Right now I am debating adapting the recipe for the crock pot. That wouldn't be too hard, right? Ha! You know me!