The Mister isn't home until late on Friday nights, and that means that we don't tend to sit down to dinner until around 8 or so. My stomach is decidedly against this schedule, and protests in the loudest, most raucous fashion imaginable. (It's sort of like having a bunch of Argentinian soccer fans in my abdomen. Who's team has lost. To England.) So I have had to placate it with a snack consisting of 2 O'Henry bars, one tiny box of Smarties, a weeny little Crispy Crunch and a cup of coffee. Surprisingly, that seems to have settled the clamor.
I do most of the cooking around here, and like to do it. (She who plans the meal gets to eat what she wants.) The Mister can knock out a mean chicken tikka, and he's a barbecuing savant, but he finds no satisfaction in the doing, only the eating, and he's happy to let me cook. And, bless him, he will eat pretty much what's put on the table in front of him. He's been known to occasionally murmur "don't make this again, okay?", as he methodically shovels down one of my less successful experiments.
And experiment I do. One of the things I love about cooking is that the possibilities are endless.
Unfortunately, the possibilities for disaster are just as numerous as for success. Some of my more regrettable efforts are as follows:
Not too long after we were married, and I was fairly new to cooking, I decided to make fried chicken from scratch. (Why I don't know...I must have been reading "To Kill A Mocking Bird" or something. Neither of us is particularly fond of fried chicken anyway.) I should have known better than attempt any dish which starts out with one melting and entire pound of lard for frying. As my husband's best friend said as he saw the lump of white goo in the frying pan: "Ah,...a British meal, I see." It took a lot longer to fry the chicken than I thought it would, and in the meantime, the mashed potatoes turned to spackle, and the peas into little green pellets, both more suitable as weaponry than dinner. I made gravy, as the recipe directed, from some of the fat the chicken was fried in. The purpose of that escapes me, as the gravy tasted exactly as you would expect hot lard and flour cooked together would taste....no discernable chicken flavour whatsoever. The chicken itself I managed to get both greasy and overcooked at the same time. It was somewhat like chewing on greasy dishcloths. But with gravy.
Any time since, when I have been looking for fried chicken, both of those times, I have gone to KFC and been done with it.
I once made a rhubarb pie and forgot to put in the sugar. One bite of that and all the moisture left your head. It was excruciating.
Another time, I made a black bean soup that looked so loathsome that the only way we could bring ourselves to eat it was to close our eyes. (It looked a bit like someone had already eaten it.) It tasted okay, but was extremely off-putting.
Once I made a scallop dish that turned out so odd my husband took a picture of it.
I am forbidden to ever contemplate, let alone make, any dish with the words "bean" and "pie" in them ever again. (Himself absolutley put his foot down on that one. Literally.)
I made a most disgusting banana bread once. I mistakenly put in a cup of salt instead of a cup of sugar. (The two containers are now labelled.) It was vile. Even the racoons, who dragged it out of the composter, wouldn't eat it.
I've learned that, although cinnamon and curry powder may look a lot alike, they are not, in fact, interchangable. (Curried Apple Pie is what they serve in hell.) Ditto for BBQ sauce and ketchup.
There have been many dishes which we have re-named, in an attempt to more accurately indicate their appearance: The Lawn Boy Special (creamed spinach), Shredded Monkey Hearts (sundried tomatoes over pasta) and Yuck on a Stick (some horrible Weight Watcher's recipe involving ground turkey, skewers and brown rice.) They didn't all taste bad, mind you, but the look of them would put you right off.
I've made my own pasta (verdict: for that kind of effort, just go out and buy it. It tastes pretty much the same, unless you're filling it with diamonds and Google shares.), my own bread (totally worth it....big bang for your buck.), my own crackers (for maximum guest intimidation, you can't beat making your own crackers.) and yogurt (easy and vastly superiour to storebought.)
And before you ask, no, my kids don't eat any of it. They are perfectly content with Hamburger Helper, chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese for dinner. (Considering the above litany, maybe they're on to something.)
For all the culinary disasters, there have also been some spectacular successes, and I suppose that's what keeps me trying. It's often the things that look the least promising that turn out to be major winners, and enter the regular dinner rotation for years. (For example, Greek Chicken is very barfy looking, but tastes terrific and is fast and low in fat and did I mention delicious?)
I'm very lucky that Himself will put up with sitting down to "Mock Duck" and "Clam Fiesta". Just as long as I don't make anything called "Bean Pie".
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