Rapunzel: I’ve been looking out of a window for eighteen years, dreaming about what I might feel like when those lights rise in the sky. What if it’s not everything I dreamed it would be?
Flynn Rider: It will be.
Rapunzel: And what if it is? What do I do then?
Flynn Rider: Well,that’s the good part I guess. You get to go find a new dream.
After more than a year of dissertation writing I’ve picked up some odd habits, including (but certainly not limited to) reading too much Harry Potter, drinking gin on a regular basis, neglecting my blog for over a year, the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and a regular diet of watching Tangled with my daughter. Perhaps I’ve been reading a bit too much philosophy (actually, most probably), but there are certain moments from the movie that appear to me at the most random times, over and over again, like the scene above. What happens when all your expectations of an event, of your dream in life, are fulfilled? What then? The answer, I find, to be somewhat terrifyingly exciting…well, you go out and find a new dream.
This is a difficult prospect for me as two whopper dreams have come to fruition in the last few years: motherhood and a PhD. In the midst of my own looming questions (What the hell do I do now? What does my life look like without being in graduate school? Was it worth it? What does this mean for my family?) I’m attempting to embrace an outlook focused on possibilities. Those possibilities (a “real” job, a decent income, publication, another move) are quite often pretty overwhelming for my still addled spirit, pushing me to find dream aperitifs, if you will: quick shots of daily dreams that provide instant gratification, and hopefully stiffen my resolve to continue pursuing the bigger, insomnia-inducing dreams that will eventually be my life’s tasty main course. Thus, over the past week I’ve peppered my days with extended conversations with friends, a little too much late-night popcorn, an overdose of football, and a menu of new crockpot recipes.
On today’s docket is a recipe out of my favorite slow cooker book, Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Family Favorites. I have yet to be disappointed by this book. As we’ve just finished our first week of Fall-ish weather, I find myself dreaming of warm, and comforting dishes…especially if they contain Italian sausage. I never really realized until recently that I have a thing for Italian sausage. It is just chock-full of meaty, salty, spicy goodness that goes well in pastas, pizzas, stuffings, and hopefully acorn squash. As a meal, this definitely fronts as a one-pot deal; it has meat, whole grain bread, vegetables, and fruit…and a butt-load of butt-er, the unsung food group…in my house…or at least for me.
Winter Squash Stuffed with Sausage, Mushrooms, and Cranberries
The beginning's of today's dream with remnants of my breakfast and last evening's night cap on the side.
I had everything laid out, ready to go. My daily dream was a go for launch. The prep looked beautiful (dried cranberries soaking in hot apple juice, chopped onions and mushrooms sizzling on 6 tablespoons of butter, and fresh honey wheat bread crumbs from Seward Co-op). The first indication that this might not be the dream dish I had hoped came when I combined all the ingredients in the skillet and the mixture was supposed to be “moist but not sticky and able to be clumped into a ball.” Yeah, pretty much just wet, so I added probably another half cup of bread crumbs to at least get to sticky stage.
The second wobble came when I went to put my pretty little stuffed acorn squash halves “in a single layer in the crock.” Could not even get two of them in a single layer, let alone four. So, I cut a little bit from the side of two of the halves to fit them in two layers in the crock.
By this point, I was having some serious doubts about seeing my expectations of this dream of squash and sausage come to being, so I improvised. I had a healthy helping of the stuffing mixture leftover that I threw in a cake pan and in the oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes for lunch. Sometimes you need a little taste of what’s to come to bring some hope back into what seems might be a dismal failure. Delicious! Cranberry, buttery, spicy goodness. Hope restored!
And some finger nail painting for an extra dollop of joy, helped along by the increasingly yummy smells lazily drifting out of my kitchen and filling the house.
The meal itself was a bit anti-climactic…especially after writing the first part of this blog. Was the squash stuffed with sausage a dream? No, but it was nonetheless an intriguing (though not popular with my daughter) meal. I served it with brown rice, and it turned out to be an essentially addition as the dish needed some taming. The meal was incredibly rich, delicious and complex for about half of it, then almost overwhelming for the rest. It was awful pretty, though.
Unfortunately, my ability to ponder the dreamlike qualities of the meal was quickly overshadowed by a post-dinner power outage that lasted about 18 hours, leaving 4 pounds of pork and a couple gallons of 
milk in its wake. Thus, my dream of squash is tainted now by the absolute anguish of throwing out the pork. It’s interesting the relatively close proximity of hope and despair, dreams and nightmares, one inevitably and often thankfully summoning the ghost of the other. Luckily, the excitement of a house full of candles for our kids, and the total inability to do anything useful except watch movies on my laptop and sleep was a dream in itself. Now to purchase some more pork for my first attempt and slow cooker ribs, and a tasty garlic onion pork tenderloin.
Working Out While Feminist 