“It’s just a sausage casserole. I swear it!”

Warning:  This post contains a seemingly x-rated image – but it’s really a sausage casserole!

I froze.  My new young husband was choking, red faced and making the noise our cat makes when hacking up a hairball.  But this was no hairball, this was my sausage casserole!  I unfroze and leapt towards him, thwacking him on the back between the shoulder blades with the heel of my hand.  Thwack,  Thwack.  He stilled for a moment.  “Is the casserole nice honey?” I asked hesitantly, trying to smile, which resembled more a grimace.  We all know that God didn’t bless me with the cooking gift.

He raised his fingers and started pulling a long clear looking thing out of his mouth which must have been flapping down the back of his throat.  He kept pulling, and pulling.  It was kinda long.  He held it up in front of me.  Oh, it definitely didn’t look good.  He glared at the long transparent object dangling from his fingers with a look of sheer horror.  He turned to me, the limp “thing” swinging from side to side as he raised it up even higher.  My eyes followed it.  Left.  Right.  Left. Right.  “What.   Is.  This?”  he asked. “Well, I know it doesn’t look like it should be in there…” I stuttered.    “Why is there a … condom … in my dinner?” he asked.

Oh my dear goodness gracious me!  It did sort of look like one of those.  I had a flash-back to the recipe.  Oopsie! I realised I should NOT have skipped the step where is said to partly boil the sausages  which would cause the skins to loosen and they should be peeled off before adding to the casserole dish.

“It’s a sausage skin!” I proudly announced.  If I looked confident maybe he would think it was part of the recipe.  But no.  I was banned from EVER cooking a sausage casserole again.

20 years later

It was time I jumped back on the sausage casserole band wagon.  We had two strapping sons now with big appetites and I was a lot more confident in my cooking, despite my kinship with kitchen disasters.  To get around my life-long ban from cooking sausage casseroles I would be “clever” and cook a – CHIPOLATA CASSEROLE!  {If it was really a sausage, it would be called a sausage, now wouldn’t it?}

The aroma from the slow-cooker which had been on for 8 hours was absolutely mouth-watering.  I knew my men would be impressed with my culinary skills this night.  I had cooked enough to feed our family for two nights.  Clever me!

A work colleague popped into my home for a meeting and we sat at the bench top.  Even he couldn’t resist the tempting sausage-scent and asked if he could peek under the lid.  Like a couple of naughty children we lifted the lid – and I’m not sure which one of us was the most embarrassed!  I shut the lid quickly and felt my face heat up and my glasses fogged.  He burst out laughing and said if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes he would never have believed what he’d just seen.  I swore to him it was just my secret Chipolata Casserole!

Later that evening it was time to dish up my feast.

My husband and our boys, aged 20 and 18, were crowding the bench like hungry cave men, bellies grumbling.  I paused with my hand on the lid, hoping it looked better than the last time I peeked.  I ever so slowly lifted the lid.

Three men jumped backwards with pained expressions on their faces.

I lifted the ladle and they backed away even further, all muttering at the same time that they were not hungry any more.  They all refused to eat my Chipolata Casserole!  I don’t know why, it was mighty delicious.  It fed me for days.  They are traumatised for life.
©2015 CEW

Reposted from my old blog site