Color Coordinated

Now here's one of those posts where I should really have a photo to accompany it, for illustrative purposes. But I don't, so boot up your imaginations and prepare to envision my dinner last night.

(I know--the excitement of envisioning my dinner is too much. Just try to contain yourself.)

Completely inadvertently, I limited our meal last night to a purple/pink color palette. Looking at my plate, I was reminded of my favorite My Little Pony, which was purple with a pink mane. Possibly not the most appetizing of associations, I know.

BUT ANYWAY.

See, here's what went down. I was going to make cabbage. Duchess's Burned Cabbage, specifically. I knew I needed to use up some of the green cabbage hanging in the Pit of Despair, because, um, I could smell it when I went into the Pit to do laundry. I could smell that it was rotting, that is. Tasty! So I steeled myself for a disgusting ordeal, grabbed the net bag the green cabbage was hanging in, and hauled it up the stairs and into the light to see if any of it was salvageable. Then I dumped the cabbages out onto the picnic table, where they promptly melted into a semi-solid puddle of black goo and rotted cabbage. With some slugs in there for added deliciousness. YAY! Into the compost heap with THAT mess, and onto plan B. That is, the purple cabbage. Which keeps better and was not a revolting, smelly, slimy, sluggy mess.

So, the color scheme is established with purple cabbage. Moving on.

Next, I later asked A. to get me some potatoes from the Pit of Despair. I asked him to do it because he was wearing shoes at the time, and venturing into the Pit of Despair in slippers would be very foolish, seeing as how the floor is mud and there could be any variety of woodland creature lurking down there. We have six varieties of potatoes stored in boxes, but I told him to just grab a few of whatever he came to first. He grabbed the Adirondack Reds, which are an absolutely delicious variety of potato that is a light purple-y pink color all the way through and makes some very girly-looking pink mashed potatoes. Which is what we had, to go with the purple cabbage.

You're seeing the theme now?

The main course, hearkening back to many a TV dinner and cafeteria lunch, was a kind of Salisbury steak*. What can I say? Ground beef was the first thing I surfaced with after freezer diving, and I didn't feel like making meat loaf. Now of course, this was not purple or pink--it was a very dull brown--but I'm counting it in the color scheme because the onions I used in the gravy were from a 25-pound bag of purple onions A. picked up the other day at a farm when he went far afield to hunt. So the onions were purple, even if the meat really wasn't. I barely managed to restrain myself from heating up some leftover beets, just to complete the theme. Restraint is one of my more notable characteristics.

So, can you see it in your head? Purple cabbage, pink mashed potatoes, and purple-onion-based meat?

Yeah. My life, it is so fun.

* Incidentally, even if you never click on links, I would encourage you to go to the Wikipedia explanation of Salisbury steak. It is enlightening. Also gross. The phrase "skeletal origin" is in there. As is the interesting fact that the USDA has benevolently decided that beef heart can be used for the meat in Salisbury steak. Bon appetite!