"Consumers Beware: Operator Error in Progress"
Why would I put such a gloomy statement in my kitchen? Well, I am batting 0 for 4 in the dinner department this week. Pretty much all my fault. This has been especially frustrating in light of my gluten-free experiment as chicken nuggets or a bowl of noodles are not possible back-up plans for me. Jason, however, has been making a nice dent in our Costco bag of chicken nuggets.
Sunday: I found this exotic-sounding recipe on a GF slow cooker site for Ethiopian Chicken Stew. Yum. I have loved all the Ethiopian food I have tried. And the recipe called for onions. Double yum. It called for 3 large onions, diced. I cut that back to 1 1/2. It would have been fine if these had been sauteed in butter and olive oil with garlic onions. But 1 1/2 large onions stewing in a crock pot for 6 hours? Yuck. It was a gloppy onion mess. Onion everywhere. The crock pot itself even smelled of onions 2 days later (yes, I cleaned it). I did salvage the chicken by removing it from the stew, adding it to rice and covering the whole thing in sour cream. I firmly believe that there are a multitude of culinary sins that can be covered/cured with sour cream.
Monday: In the afternoon, I took out the New York strip steaks we had bought and thought of pan frying or broiling them to eat with rice and veggies. I left them on the counter to thaw because they were frozen. They were frozen when we bought them and frozen the entire time we had them. A little bit later, I discovered a large blue growth on one of them. Blue is not normally a color I associate with meat. Luckily, the steaks were individually shrink-wrapped so I hoped the other ones were fine. I cut them out and sniffed. And told Jason to fend for himself while I pulled out the leftover onion chicken and the sour cream.
Tuesday: My Pampered Chef Angel appeared with my rice cooker. I was banking on this nifty device to get me through the tough times. Historically, rice and I have had a rocky relationship. I can't seem to figure out how to make rice well. How something that has only one ingredient can be so difficult to get right is beyond me. Enter the rice cooker. Microwaveable even. I was saved! Luckily, I have pounds of rice in our food storage cupboards so I would never go hungry or wander the kitchen wondering what to eat again (for the next two weeks anyway). While we are in the basement storage area, let me tell you what we also keep in that same cupboard: Shampoo, conditioners, soaps and air fresheners. That's right. I zapped that rice in the microwave and it came out tasting like Herbal Essences.
Wednesday: The main course of dinner actually came out pretty well. I am even looking forward to eating the leftovers. Success! And then I decided to make pumpkin pie without the crust. Let's pretend it was for the beta-carotene. It turned out relatively edible, but I would really, really recommend that when the recipe on the can says to beat the egg before adding it to the other ingredients that you do so. Otherwise, you might end up with pumpkin pie that has scrambled egg-like chunks throughout.
Just some things to think about if I ever offer to feed you.
1 comment:
I am laughing my head off! Sorry about your woes, but thanks for the laugh.
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