When it’s time to say goodbye and Creamy cheese/ham over pasta

There’s no easy way to say this so I’ll come right out with it.  I got a divorce yesterday.  Yes, after almost four decades of a good relationship even with a few problems and breaks, I boxed up my final Mr. Coffee maker and returned him to Target yesterday.  After signing the final divorce papers at the return desk I’ve moved on to KitchenAid.  As I sit here drinking a HOT cup of coffee, I realize that I was in denial that things were wrong and nothing was going to make Mr. Coffee change back to being reliable and delivering a hot cup of coffee every morning.

I remember buying my first Mr. Coffee on sale for $14.99 and it worked great for over 20 years.  Simple design – put your coffee grounds in the basket, dump some water in, hit the button and viola!  hot coffee came pouring out.  Then they came out with a new feature – delayed brewing.  Huh, sounded like a great idea to have hot coffee waiting for me when I shuffled downstairs.  So I upgraded all the way to the new $24.99 model which was great once I figured out how to set the current time and delayed brewing time.  That pot stuck with me for years until I was diagnosed with MS which sometimes caused me to lose my grasp on things, like glass coffee pots.  I was so famous in the neighborhood for smashing coffee pots that as friends upgraded to different models they’d give me their old pots until I had a nice stash of extras built up.

But then, as you know we got the granite counters and my supply of pots quickly diminished…along with glasses and plates.  Not ready to give up I even bragged about my new Mr. Coffee ($39.99 on sale at Target) in my last In My Kitchen post.  Looked nice, right – even with my reflection in the pot…

That was the beginning of February and although I really didn’t like the new design of this coffee maker, I tried to love it…for a week.  Then it started dripping coffee onto the hot plate when you pulled the pot out to pour a cup.  I think that could be a design feature since I’m guessing it might eventually start to mess up the hot plate at which point your coffee doesn’t get very hot, the plate burns out and there you are in Target again.  Once it started the dripping routine, the design really started to annoy me.  For some reason they decided to put the basket for the coffee in the front and in the same compartment, the water reservoir right behind it with about a 2″ opening to pour your water in.  If you shake and miss, then water comes pouring out the coffee spout all over the counter.  Once you manage to get some water in the back, then you can put the coffee in the basket, then swing this little arm from the back, over the top of the coffee grounds so in theory, it will gently spray water over your coffee grounds promising a superb cup of coffee.  That was the theory anyway but it was annoying as all get-out so I boxed that little buddy up and headed over to Target again.

Back to the coffee maker aisle and although there were a number of brands to chose from, I decided that I wanted one that made a full pot rather than one cup and I wanted an easy to fill design.  When I saw the next step up in Mr. Coffee on sale for $59.99 with the stainless steel carafe I figured that was the end of smashed pots for Diane.  And look how they even separated the water from the coffee grounds –

That’s the theory anyway.  Reality was…
Day 1:  John didn’t have his coffee at 7:00 as he was busy shoveling snow then had to run out to work.  When I got my first cup, it was fine, just fine, not great because it was a little lukewarm.  Ah!  I forgot to put the cover on top of the pot.  That must be it.
Day 2:  John grabbed the first cup right at 7:00 and later told me that his was piping hot.  Huh?  Mine was a little less than lukewarm and I’d remembered to put the cover on.  Maybe Mr. Coffee’s worried about hot coffee lawsuits and decided to make lukewarm coffee.
Day 3:  I woke up to a piercing screech that seemed to be coming from the kitchen.  “John – is that the coffee pot making that noise?”
“yeah, I’m trying to get the hotplate to stay on but it keeps going off”
“Well, would you kindly take your finger off the brew button because the animals are covering their ears”
“I did, it won’t stop!”
“Pull the plug or toss it out the back door!”
When I made my way downstairs I noticed that half the water was still in the water reservoir.  Now that’s not good but when I plugged it back in, the screeching started again.  Okay, sigh…there’s enough that brewed to give me one hit of caffeine which should hold me until I box this baby back up and head on over to Target.

How embarrassing is it when it’s the same sales clerk doing the return and she says “another problem Ma’am?”.  “Yes and I’m divorcing Mr. Coffee!”.  I’m sure they think I’m up to something dodgy with all the coffee pot returns – maybe stealing pieces one at a time until I make my own coffee pot for free.  But back to the coffee maker aisle.  As they say – fool me once –  shame on you, fool me twice – shame on me.  Hello KitchenAid… I always said I’d never pay a lot of money for a coffee maker because really the technology is pretty simple:   water – coffee grounds – a button – a pot – DONE.  But now, $100 later I am finally sitting with a really HOT cup of coffee and you know what?  It really does taste better when it’s hot.

I really hope that we have the coffee maker situation under control and will just have to look online to stock up on glass pots for it but in the meantime, I had to make the other Mr. in the house happy.  John’s been around longer than my Mr. Coffee’s and will probably hang around as long as I put a plate of pasta in front of him every now and then.  Since I was seriously worn out from packing up and lugging coffee pots around, I went with a quick and easy solution while also using up some leftover ham.  Sort of a cheesy/creamy sauce with ham and spinach on top of pasta did the trick….

No real recipe for this one…I just used a small 8 oz. ball of shredded mozzarella cheese with an equal portion of parmesan and a little cream.  After getting that all melted in the saucepan, I added diced chunks of ham and topped it all off with spinach.  Put it on top of some pasta and dinner was a success.

Since we’re now in the midst of a nasty Nor’Easter blizzard and there will be more shoveling to do….I think I’ll make a pot of coffee!  Please don’t accuse me of animal abuse – she loves it out there and won’t come in.

I just had to update with this photo from the front of the house this morning, after the storm.  This icicle has to be at least 10-12′ long.  Going to make some noise when that lets go.