Refrigerator improv

The friend we stayed with in (or rather just outside) Seattle doesn't really cook. She lives alone and she's starting to cook a bit, but it's basically large-batch, utility cooking at this point.

She heard we were coming and took the opportunity to fill the fridge in her small apartment kitchen. I swear we told her well in advance that we were only staying Wednesday late through Sunday, but she stocked up.

Then she realized that there was a bit too much stuff for the three of us to eat in five days and invited two friends over for dinner. So I had a fridge full of assorted ingredients I didn't choose and two strangers arriving shortly.

Into the pan went some chicken breasts dunked in lime juice, salt, pepper, olive oil, and oregano. I'd have added garlic but there wasn't any that I could find. While that roasted, I cut up and sauteed some green beans and onions. When the chicken was mostly done, I arranged the sauteed veggies over it, covered the whole thing with grated cheese and tossed it back in the oven for long enough to finish and blend a bit.

Now, the Pacific Northwest has plenty of berries around this time of year, and there were some raspberries in the fridge, too. There were just enough ingredients to make shortcakes of them (flour, butter, sugar, baking powder, salt, milk). I've almost never baked without a recipe, but I'd done shortcakes in the past week, so I remembered the proportions as best I could and winged it. They came out fine, as, happily, did the chicken-and-vegetable stuff.

The company turned out to be interesting, too. One fellow coworker, originally from Argentina, and a woman whose relationship I didn't quite catch, other than that she was from someplace besides work. We attempted a little Spanish but felt a little silly speaking it when both of us are more comfortable in English and nobody else there spoke. A fun evening, all-in-all, almost completely unplanned.