Culinary chaos

Let me start off by saying that I am not a bad cook. I’m no gourmet cook by any means and tend toward the meat-and-potato fare of my childhood, but I can cook. As far as I know, people haven’t left my house talking about how disgusting the meal I prepared was. But, in hindsight, what kind of person would actually tell you that?

Anyway, I can read a recipe and follow it (and digress from it when I feel creative). After seeing Julie and Julia last weekend, I’ve been dreaming of being more creative and thoughtful about the things I cook, rather than just serving up some grilled cheese because it’s my comfort food.

But last night—oh, last night—everything fell apart. There was no culinary success in my kitchen. It was more like a culinary crime scene.

Here’s why: On Tuesday night, I hadn’t been very hungry and had simply boiled some pasta and made a light butter/garlic/herb sauce to go on it. It was nothing special, but it was all I wanted on Tuesday. I decided to boil enough pasta, though, so that I could use it for another dish the next night. See, I was thinking ahead. Always a problem for me! 🙂 Yesterday morning before leaving for work, I put some ground beef, an expensive can of imported crushed tomatoes with basil that I had been hording rather than using, and some other ingredients in the crock pot. The idea was to let it all simmer together all day, then have a nice, hearty meat sauce for the pasta when I got ready to eat last night. I set the crock pot to low and left. When I opened the door yesterday afternoon, I expected to be greeted by the smell of bubbling tomatoes. But there was nothing. I walked into the kitchen, opened the crock pot—which was uncharacteristically cold—and saw everything looking pretty much as I’d left it. That means uncooked. I wondered if the crock pot had quit working or something. Then, I thought to look at the plug. Yes, it was plugged in (thank you very much!) but I’d plugged it in to this three plug-in thing I have to allow me to plug in more small appliances. (Yes, I am aware that I am an electrical nightmare.) I had plugged the crock pot into the only open space in this thing. There’s a reason that space has nothing plugged into it: it’s a bit hard to plug things into. I thought I had plugged the crock pot in completely, but apparently, I hadn’t. I had also moved the crock pot in order to get to the toaster and may have pulled the plug out even more. It doesn’t really matter, though, the result is still the same: instead of a nice meat sauce for some spaghetti, I had tomato sauce mixed with raw meat that had set out on the counter all day long. Not exactly appetizing. I couldn’t bring myself to cook the stuff up on the stove and eat it, because it just didn’t seem like the best idea.

So, I ended up adding some other stuff to the pasta and it was unappetizing and not so great. I was still hungry after I finished eating. This was one time I was happy to be cooking only for myself and eating alone, because I wouldn’t subject anyone else to the bland cooking atrocity I ate for dinner last night. Even if I didn’t like the person.

Luckily, Mindy brought me a chocolate shake to choir rehearsal, so at least I had one palatable food/beverage last night. It suffices to say that today’s lunch is not made up of left-overs, but instead is a turkey sandwich with provolone.

I hope this culinary disaster doesn’t start a series of cooking debacles in my life. I really like food—good, fully cooked, tasty food.