Unhand that sponge!
When I was a kid, my mom thought she was funny when she said, “Yes, I have a dishwasher — two, in fact!”
Truth is, I’m a horrible dishwasher. That’s why my sister washed and I dried.
It isn’t that I leave food residue behind. Oh no, I scrub every nook and cranny.
It takes me forever, which causes me to dread it. So I employ various methods to either put off the dishwashing or slough it off on someone else — the this-needs-to-soak-overnight trick (which really means it needs to soak until someone else gets tired of looking at it and washes it for me); the I’ll-put-this-in-the-dishwasher-even-though-it-will-probably-melt trick; and finally, the all-out whine fest.
Having admitted all that, I’ll go one step further: When my husband does the dishes, I complain about the food residue he leaves behind.
Yeah, he’s a patient man. He perseveres because he likes a spotless kitchen and because he knows, as the sign in his stepmother’s kitchen reads, “No man was ever shot while doing dishes.”
To continue reading this column, click here. You’ll find one-pot recipes for Spanish Rice, Moroccan-Style Chicken Stew, Quinoa Risotto with Arugula and more!


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Cut and layer in a Dutch oven 2 fist-sized red potatoes cut in quarters,then cover the potatoes in water. Chop half head of cabbage, then cut one package of smoked turkey sausage or kielbasa into 4 pieces. Put cabbage and sausage on top of potatoes, season with salt and pepper, heat to boil, then turn heat down to simmer. It’s done when the potatoes are tender.
I make a pone of cornbread to go with this.
Yum, that sounds great, Kathy!
I’ve seen a one-pot meal with pork chops, sauerkraut and apples, too.
It was funny that when I went looking for one-pot recipes for this column, I had to disqualify several because they had to be served over rice or noodles. But that’s still not too many dishes, I guess, or you could use leftover rice from another meal.
How about this? A neighbor of mine gave me a one-pot recipe after I got married: sear pork chops in a frying pan, put a slice of onion and a slice of tomato over each chop, sprinkle a cup of uncooked rice around the chops and add 2 cups of water with salt and pepper, simmer til the rice is done. You can use 2 cups of chicken broth for more flavor instead of water. Of course if you want a veggie you have another pot to clean, or you could throw in some frozen peas into this and still have that one pot dinner!