This is a true story. A couple years ago, Greg took it upon himself to help out in the kitchen. So he began racking up the points with his wife by wiping the counters. A clean rag and bottle of purple stuff—what’s so hard about that? A couple swipes in and POP! He breaks the tendon on his third finger.

He ends up with anesthesia, surgery, a metal pin, a bottle of good drugs, and months of therapy. (He skipped the therapy but not the drugs, “Physical therapy for a finger?!” he laughed at the nurse.) To appreciate the story, you have to know that Greg launches 260-foot high metal containers of highly combustible liquids for a living and builds furniture using table saws, routers, and other things that have fast-moving carbide teeth. He trims the oak tree in our front yard by himself and climbs on our two-story roof whenever necessary. He also attends me while I’m in labor (the nurse at my fourth delivery will attest to the danger in that).

The kitchen incident is a great party story. Greg admits that he isn’t Mr. Gourmet in the kitchen. Cooking duties rest primarily on me, and we are all happy (and alive) with this arrangement. This is how it works in our house, and so you can imagine that it gets sticky when I’m out of commission. People keep wanting to eat whether I’m sick or not.

If you’re not keen on leftovers, then you will not enjoy my second unorthodox method of getting along in a house full of babies. I always make enough food for several meals so that I do not have to cook every night. I do not make one chicken pot pie; I make eight of them. We eat chicken pot pie for two nights usually, and then I freeze the rest. Your mileage may vary, so feel free to adjust this.

Think about it this way. If you make eight chicken pot pies over the course of a few months, you will have to clean up the mess eight times instead of just once. That’s eight pans to make the saucy stuff (chicken broth, butter, milk, salt, pepper, thyme and flour…boil), eight knives to cut up the veggies, etc. Then you have to cook the chicken eight times while keeping the dog out of it. Why not do it just once? A fresh salad, veggies, and/or fruit, and voila—dinner is served.

So there you have it. If you stay at our house for a week, you will only get three different dinners. If you’re a hankerin’ for something different though, feel free to defrost a little pot pie from the freezer.