One night last week, we broke a mold.

In our house, usually I make dinner, we eat cereal, or the Chaplain orders takeout. There aren’t many variations on this theme, except when the kids step up and make something.

If I do a little dinner prep early in the day, it can give me the push I need to finish the job later so that there aren’t too many “breakfast for dinner” nights in one week (other Mom Didn’t Cook favorites include quesadillas and grilled cheese sandwiches).

On this day, I started some beans to re-hydrate on the stove late in the morning and put two pumpkins in the oven to roast.

I left the beans boiling away and forgot about them. The beans soaked up all the water, started to fall apart, and burned to the bottom of the pan. It filled the house with the particularly bad smell that is burned beans.

I managed to save the pumpkins from the oven before they got past their prime. Then I got caught up in a house project.

The Chaplain saw that I’d had something going, and started some chicken and rice to go with it.

There are a few reasons I have visitors in the kitchen when I’m making already making dinner: they come to ask when it will be ready, to complain about what I’m making, or they try to make oatmeal instead of whatever I have planned.

Excepting major holidays, no one EVER comes into the kitchen, sees what I’m making, and starts making something complementary to go with it.

I was inspired and encouraged when I saw what was happening. After I finished my house project, I resurrected the burned beans into one of our favorite Caribbean dishes, and we worked together to make mashed pumpkin.

The resulting spread was a savory selection of comfort food.

Christmas music was playing. I lit candles. The Chaplain and I served the dinner we had made together – if memory serves, our first collaborative dinner ever.

The dining room was dark, lit with the flickering candles. We sat and ate together, and it felt really good.

I was grateful, and added the evening to the growing list of things we did this month that weren’t complicated or expensive, but meaningful ways of making Advent and the Christmas season special.

*There is privilege in hydrating beans, because it takes a couple of hours (unless you remember to put them to soak in water the night before, which takes even more time but means they don’t have to be supervised on a hot stove for as long). I’ve heard that re-hydrated beans have a nuttier flavor. I think they do, but it’s subtle enough that I wouldn’t use this method for that reason alone. I like dried beans because they are thrifty. If you get the timing right, they can have kind of crisp tender bite to them that is quite nice. Even if they end up too soft, they are still cheaper and less salty than canned beans.