Twice this week I have had some major kitchen mishaps. Now, I have stated many times before that I am by no means a cook. I do know how to follow basic recipes and my "home cooked" meals typically consist of box meals that require me to simply add the chicken. Yes, it is better than fast food, but it's not any good definition of home cooking.
Inspired by The Cooks Next Door, I set out on Sunday to make a delicious pot of spaghetti sauce. Patrick loves to come home, walk in the door, and smell sauce cooking. To tell you the truth, I love it too :) Sauce was on, spices were added, aroma was wafting, and my mouth was already watering as I thoguth about the night's dinner.
I am not really sure when things went awry...but when I checked on the pot a few hours later, something was VERY wrong. My sauce, my delicious sauce was BROWN. And crusty on the top. One stir confirmed my fears....the sauce was burned. It was edible, but not good. Patrick was kind enough to eat it. Morgan, my little truthful cherub, refused. She was the only smart one!
Fast forward to Wednesday night. I was making a cake for a friend's birthday that called for a coconut topping. Thinking that it would make the cake look a little nicer if the coconut was toasted, I set about doing that. Taking the idea from one of the Cooks, I put the coconut on a cookie sheet, and threw it in the oven, thinking that I would check on it in a few minutes. My mistake was not setting a timer.
I sat down to work on a blog post for another blog. A while later I smelled coconut. ACK! I didn't check on the "toasted" coconut. Here is what I found:
Ugh. So much for lightly brown tipped coconut flakes. That meant another run to the store. Thankfully I was able to "fix" this problem before the party (it's in the morning). I haven't cooked anything more complex than Easy Mac since Sunday. I was going to try my hand at a homemade apple pie, but after the latest burning I am questioning if I should be cooking at all!
2 comments:
Another example of "it runs in the family". When I was your age, I put some brownies in the oven to cook. Then I had company arrive. I went to the "ladies room" and the buzzer on the timer went off. I yelled out and asked my friend to turn it off. When I rejoined her in the living room, I commented on how wonderful the brownies smelled. We chatted while waiting for the husbands and children to come inside. We waited and waited, suddenly I could smell some thing burning. OH NO!!! My wonderful brownies were black and hard as cement. A knife would not cut them. We could not even get them out of the glass pan so that I could throw them away. Some how the oven had not been turned completely off. Once the pan was cooled. I had to soak it in water for a long time before any of the mess would come loose. MORAL: I should have checked on them myself.
I am surprised you even kept the pan. I would have tossed the entire thing in the trash!
Post a Comment