It took me a pot of chicken soup, six large crab cakes and a pan of the Barefoot Contessa’s Salted Caramel Brownies to avoid shoveling the driveway today. I could have squeezed in an apple pie but I prefer to do back-breaking work in the daylight.

“You haven’t shoveled yet,” asked my husband during an early afternoon call from his desk on Morrissey Boulevard.

“No, I haven’t BECAUSE I’M WAITING FOR BROWNIES TO COME OUT OF THE OVEN,” I fired back.

“Oh, OK,” said he, the intended recipient of Ina Garten’s gooey sweets. “That’s a good excuse.”

I thought so.

Earlier in the day, as the snow and sleet came down, I was like the Iron Chef: let’s see what’s in the fridge and make a meal happen.

I found a can of lump crabmeat in the freezer, so that was a start. However, I failed to read the “Do Not Freeze” instructions on the label when I originally bought it. Oops. Well, too bad. I was using it. Company’s not coming.

I mixed the defrosted crab, egg, mayo, dry mustard, Old Bay Seasoning, Worcestershire, a few dabs of hot sauce, lemon juice and American Spoon’s Whole Seed Mustard “caviar” in a large bowl. I tossed in panko bread crumbs, a little lemon zest and — voila! — six big crab cakes for dinner. Thankfully, I had just enough mayo left to stir together with Stonewall Kitchen‘s Country Ketchup for a quick remoulade.

I put them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet in the fridge to await the return of the Snow Shovel Scofflaw.

But today really called for soup. From my earlier expedition into the freezer – I felt like Shackelton, I swear — I hit upon one boneless chicken breast (?), a Gladware of chicken stock and a bag of organic frozen peas.  The produce drawers uncovered two carrots, a pair of parsnips, some celery and an onion. So I made chicken soup with orzo. Sprinkled with Parmesan and a squirt of lemon juice it was a lunchtime elixir on this wet, winter day.

After that, I was faced with a dessert conundrum. I only had three eggs, so I was limited. I could swing a not-so-mile-high apple pie. Ditto for carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. But I was at a loss and I was losing daylight.

So I settled for Ina’s Salted Caramel Brownies in her “Barefoot Contessa: Foolproof”cookbook. I actually had a bottle of caramel topping (of dubious origin) in the fridge and my supply of baking chocolate is never low. What do you need? Unsweetened? Bittersweet? Semi-sweet? White? Chips, chunks or blocks? Just call me Willa Wonka.

So, wait, my girl Ina wants me to cool the melted butter-chocolate mixture for 15 minutes? How about 20? Don’t want those eggs to scramble!

Tick, tock…

Unfortunately, the brownies only took 27 minutes to bake and cost me less than a minute to drizzle on the caramel topping and sprinkle on the Maldon sea salt.

Finally, I couldn’t stall anymore. My yellow shovel, which I hadn’t touched since Monday, beckoned. It took nearly two hours to clean the driveway and heave shovelfuls of the heavy icy mess the town’s plow left behind.

Maybe we got 8 inches. Maybe it was 7. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that when I came in, dried off and settled in my chair with a cup of tea, I really could have used some warm apple pie. And, yes, it would have made me feel better.

Damn.

(Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @LauraRaposa)

Tags: #americanspoonfoods, #applepie, #barefootcontessa, #chickensoup, #cooking, #crabcakes, #foolproof, #inagarten, #LauraRaposa, #snowdays, #stonewallkitchen, #TheFoodsmith, Baking