Cooking FAIL #659

Yep, the cooking Fail that occurred tonight was p.r.e.t.t.y bad.

I've cooked pot roast with potatoes and carrots in the crock pot at least once a month since getting married.  Partially because it's my favorite meal and partially because it's so dang easy.  Or at least, I thought it was.  But never fear, the Cooking Hack came to the rescue and found a way to screw up a meal she thought she had added to the "easy" list.

It was so bad...

Katherine very innocently and kindly said to me, "Hey Momma, those carrots were awful, but look, I ate all of them!"

Nathan very seriously warned his father, "Dad, be careful.  If you eat dat chicken it will weave bones in your mouf."

And Brandon, the child who eats ANYTHING, was throwing his food, overarm throwing his food while screeching at the top of his lungs.



You know it's bad when before the meal is cleaned up I'm asking about going to Moe's tomorrow night.




May the God of everything, even cooking, smile down upon our family.


(Notice, I'm hoping and praying for a miracle to happen.  I'm not offering up any concrete solutions.  I've known it for a while, but maybe I should look into a cooking class.  Who, seriously, has the time, though?)

Thank goodness for friends who tolerate the kitchen

It's no secret: I'm not a cook.
Nor a baker.
Nor, do I really enjoy doing anything inside the kitchen beside cleaning it up or reorganizing it.
So, when family or friends offer to do things with our children that involve making kitchen activities fun, I'm all over it. Because frankly, that's why God made all types, right? I find it a blessing and privilege to depend on other's strengths to teach my children stuff I could care less about, and hopefully they'll look to me for the same.
So don't waste your time wondering what my response was when Bamah called one day and said, "Papa found this adorable Gingerbread house and thought the grandkids would like putting it together and decorating it. Would you mind if they came over for the day to do that and make some Christmas cookies?"
Or even, when my good friend 'A' said she wanted to have Katherine over to make/bake/decorate some sugar cookies with her daughter, AC.
We all know the answer to those two requests.
Just thinking about the patience I would need to muster up to do something like these two activities makes me want to go chill out and watch some HGTV.

Thankfully, our children not only have their father to encourage healthy kitchen habits, but also loving friends and family to do the same.
Even our neighbors make a point to include our little ones in baking.
Make sure you keep me in mind when your child needs tutoring in math or your closet needs a good cleaning.

Oprah ain't never gonna come calling here for a cooking show

I love to mow the lawn. No really, I LOVE to mow the lawn, and edge, and weed-eat and blow it all off when I'm finished. I think it has something to do with getting a tan or being able to complete a project, uninterrupted, and see the beautiful results. Maybe also it's knowing that I still have skills besides wiping rear ends or even getting a tiny break from being a mommy.

Jim enjoys it because he works in the hot sun 5-6 days a week and the last thing he wants to do is bake in it more.

I think it might have something to do with the noise also. Just a couple of weeks ago, I realized that I find myself vacuuming more than really needs cleaned or even drying my hair a little bit longer. And I'm pretty sure it has to do with the drowning out of the noise. I don't hear whining, bickering or even the blessed Elmo songs. Nobody has ever been seriously injured or started to bleed or even lost a limb while I've been in insanely-loud Mommy-land. So, I think I might be on to something.

Back to mowing: I prefer it over the other two loud hobbies of mine, because it is repetitive and no one can hang on my leg. I get lots of thinking time while mowing.

Today gave me the perfect opportunity to think about our trip to the grocery story this morning. Everybody who knows me well enough, knows that me and grocery stores are like hormones and husbands. We don't mix. Which further adds to my problems in the kitchen. Although, it's very possible a witch intern accidentally put a hit out on me with the cooking gods. Which would explain A LOT!

I digress. Usually, my lack of completing the task of grocery shopping completely and within a respectable amount of time is blamed on something else. The store was crowded. I forgot my sweater. The kids were acting up. She wouldn't quit asking a hundred questions. I couldn't concentrate. I felt rushed. My husband wouldn't quit calling. I ran into a friend. I was concentrating too much on coupon-ing. Blah, blah, blah. There's always an excuse for me, because I can't ever seem to get it right. And today was no exception, except that there was NO excuse for my absent-mindedness. None.

The kids were seated and well-behaved and I had only 15 easy items to find. My trip was spurred on by providing a meal to a new-baby momma and I had already discussed the menu with her. On this particular trip, one very important item was left sitting cold and pretty in the freezer aisle. Right next to the limas and black-eyed peas I did manage to pick up.

So why all the fuss? Isn't the baby momma understanding that I forgot to pick up the green beans? Of course she was and she just chalks it up to another Kelle-grocery-shopping experience. Which is what irks me!

Why? Why can't I get it? The second or third line of a mother's job description has something to do with providing food for her family, and I fail miserably at it ALL THE TIME! What's going on with my brain that seems to make it so hard to successfully buy items on a grocery list and prepare them at home? I have no idea.

Some ideas I tossed about over supper (to my smirking husband), were along the lines of: maybe it's too much to choose from in the grocery store, or even sensory overload. The distractions are half-way legitimate excuses but I mess something up when I'm just by myself also.

I admit, I'm envious of those able to perform the simple task of not stressing out over a trip to the grocery store and coming home to prepare a scrumptious meal.

Jim's take on it was this: my heart's not in it.

Doesn't he just make you want to puke sometimes, or even strangle him? He couldn't be more right, that's the problem. I could care less about grocery shopping or cooking. If it were up to me, we'd have those machines that prepare meals for you with the push of a button, like on the Jetsons. That's all I'm interested in. No automatic washer, no maid to clean up. Our costs would be wrapped up so much in that food thinga-ma-bobber that I'd gladly clean up.
This has been going on for a while though. In my teenage years, the first time I cooked spaghetti for my dad, I neglected to get the water boiling before adding the noodles. There was little-to-no stirring involved and the spaghetti blob had to be cut like pie slices. He politely declined the noodle-slice smothered in Ragu poured straight from the jar.

My next cooking disaster happened about the same age and I ended up cooking and eating not-thoroughly-cooked chocolate grits. Long story.

I took the class Meat We Eat in college because it was supposed to be an easy 2-credit class. I think I managed to squeak out a D+.

God has to have a sense of humor for pairing me up with Jim because he is his mother's child and that man can cook along with everyone else in the family. This evening, he so graciously scraped the burnt lima beans out of the bottom of the pot I left sitting on the grill outside so it wouldn't stink up the house. Yep, we were supposed to have green beans also, then it turned to lima beans and finally we ate left-over broccoli in the fridge (that Jim had cooked).

So bare with me, if you've received a meal from me and it was horrible, just smile and thank me later on. If you were thinking about inviting me to a cooking expo, please invite someone else, I'll save you the time of asking and you'll enjoy it more. If you're looking for a good recipe from me for your fund-raising cookbook, I'll send you the ONE I use off of allrecipes.com. And last but not least, if you come to my house and eat a meal that is out of sight, Jim cooked it.



I leave you with an excerpt from a post I did back in June of last year: Enjoy!
"Whenever Jim and I are in the kitchen it's like this dueling dance of power. He's the cook and I'm just basically a hack that fakes her way through a meal. However, our approach to cooking sometimes reveals our approach to life and our levels of optimism about the world around us.

For example, he's a recipe skimmer, basically he actually comprehends the recipe the first time he reads it and his cooking-intuition is 99% right. I'm a recipe studier, analyzer, follower (to a fault) which has not worked in my favor.

His attention span is long when it comes to cooking. He's fast and adept and flings food around while he's stirring. I am slow and agonizing, taking twice as long to do everything, frequently do it the hard way and always keep everything inside the pan.

He does not wash as he goes. I take too long washing, inevitably messing up something that is cooking because I wasn't paying attention to the food.

I assume it's all going to work out fine, and it usually doesn't; he's certain it will and it does."

Childhood memories

Periodically I have flashbacks of my childhood. I remember one time in particular something didn't go my way. I think I was around 6-9, can't quite remember. It was me, mom and Mark at home and whatever it was that didn't sit well with me, was NOT in my plan (however minor it might have been). So, the only solution to my unhappiness was to pull out the drama and kick it up a notch or two, compared to my normal drama.

I proceeded to wail the best fake cry I could muster, trying desperately to produce a tear or two, dragging it out even after something had distracted me for a second. I would quickly re-compose myself and remembered the goal of proving that this not-my-way stuff is for the birds and everybody else would just be better off if I got my way. I think my mom was busy with something else, like being a mom, and she wasn't there to shush me up so I continued. Wailing, fake-crying, falling to the ground, minor foot-stomping etc.

Since I was getting no attention, I threw myself on the bed, face down and proceeded to wail even louder. (If it weren't for my paralyzing fear of the stage, I'm sure I could have been a GREAT actress.) My arm was folded up underneath my face and I remember concentrating on making the crying sound genuine and heartbreaking so I could force misery upon my perpetrator. Hours went by, well, it felt like hours. Minutes went by while I perfected the best crying scene I could generate and

WHAM!

Out of the blue, a hand smacked my rear-end, I was so proudly sticking up in the air (part of the staging I was working on). And quickly the proclamation followed: "There. That'll give you something to cry about."

Oh my heavens! The wailing continued, but this time with more gusto and heart to back it up; because of pain. My mother, who no-doubtedly had heard enough of my practicing-for-Broadway antics, gave me a real reason to cry. But this time it didn't last as long for fear of receiving another reason to cry.

I learned a big lesson that day: When pulling out all the acting stops, don't leave your rear-end exposed.

Enter: Katherine not wanting to take a nap. Need I say more? She didn't get her way today while I was feeding Nathan his bottle and she decided to pull out all the stops. There was no Wham-ing. Just calmly reading some books as a distraction, but I got so tickled remembering my childhood. Speaking of childhood memories, the story about the movie Annie and singing the song "Tomorrow" is at the bottom.

* * * * *

Today, Katherine's bestest bud AC came over to play for a little bit. I thought it would be a great opportunity to bake some cookies I've had sitting in the box on the counter for about a month. The cutie-patooties put on their aprons and stood on chairs next to the counter.
They combined the pre-measured ingredients, mixed it up and placed dollops of dough on the cookie sheet. We talked about what a recipe is, how the cookies change when they're baking and had a taste test after they cooled.
Conclusion: Even boxed cookies don't like me. I'm convinced the culinary Gods are upset with me and have placed a 'hit' on me.

Thanks to some wise intervention and experience-talk from AC's mom, it maybe had something to do with the cooking stone, humidity, the fact that they came in a box and just plain wrong cooking times on the instructions. I'm going with that because I'm sure it had nothing to do with me and my abilities.

* * * * *

Annie (Soundtrack)

Another treasured memory of mine was when the movie Annie came out. My favorite part of the movie: when Annie sang, "Tomorrow."

So, I'm in our back yard, where we had 5 acres separating us from neighbors, at 7 years old singing "Tomorrow" at the top of my lungs, trying very hard to hit each note on pitch and remember the words. I sang it all the time and there was probably some dancing/choreography included.

What my parents heard was a non-stop bad version of the soundtrack to Annie stuck on one song. What they saw was a little girl dancing around, oblivious to the rest of the world, singing her heart out.

What my parents didn't know was that I was convinced that if I sang good enough and loud enough our neighbors, who were 5 acres away, just might have a talent scout at their house. And that talent scout would hear the melodic voice of the next Annie-on-Broadway-replacement singing her heart out and he would ask that little girl and her parents if she would be interested in, gasp even better, being in the movies!

Don't laugh, it is soooo do-able in a 7-year-old's mind and that's exactly what I thought. I eventually got tired of singing the song over and over again and moved on to wanting to be a gold-medal gymnast like Mary Lu Retton.

Lemonade anyone?

Well, this week was meant for me to make lemonade, I guess. The good news is that Nathan's fussiness from teething is better, Katherine has learned that there are consequences for emptying the bookshelf without putting the books back and my husband has still found a way to tolerate me when I'm in a bad mood. The bad news: It will take at least $5000 to fix just the pool and I did not pass the National Surveying Exam. I could go on and on about the negatives concerning my exam, because the devil has had soooo much fun planting horrible thoughts in my head. So I won't, I'll remind myself of the positives attached to this license-receiving endeavor:

• I passed 3 of 4 tests the first time I took them
• The guy sitting next to me in April was taking it for the 5th time; my next try will only be the 3rd
• It's only $120 to take the test
• I only have to re-take the portion I didn't pass
• God has a plan and he knows the desires of my heart (and my skill level)

When I lost my job in January, I chose to look at it as a blessing. I was going to stay home with our children, which is what I wanted the whole time. Jim and I were just forced into it. I still consider it a blessing (even when the days are bad). So this, I've decided, is just another way that God's almighty plan is taking a path that I never would have chosen. But, is better than anything I could have ever planned myself. I might not understand it, but I trust Him.

It gave me the opportunity to explain to Katherine that sometimes Mommy's have bad days too, and when Nathan pulls my hair, it hurts just as bad. She was a real trooper this afternoon, since I got the results in the mail. Nathan, on the other hand, decided to "reward" me with taking a late AM nap and a 20 minute PM nap. I'm afraid he truly takes after his father, who wasn't and still isn't a big fan of napping. Oh well. He laughs hysterically when I gum his ribs, throw him in the air, play peek-a-boo, poof air in his face and has decided that crawling EVERYWHERE is his newest passion. Gonna have to buy some cheapy pants to protect his knees from the tile floors. He's seriously on the move.

Better rest up for tomorrow. There's no telling what it will bring.

p.s. On one of the other blogs I follow, I found this paragraph describing a woman and her husband in the kitchen and thought it was hilarious enough to share. I've switched the names and some of the traits around, but you'll get the idea:

"Whenever Jim and I are in the kitchen it's like this dueling dance of power. He's the cook and I'm just basically a hack that fakes her way through a meal. However, our approach to cooking sometimes reveals our approach to life and our levels of optimism about the world around us.
For example, he's a recipe skimmer, basically he actually comprehends the recipe the first time he reads it and his cooking-intuition is 99% right. I'm a recipe studier, analyzer, follower (to a fault) which has not worked in my favor. His attention span is long when it comes to cooking. He's fast and adept and flings food around while he's stirring. I am slow and agonizing, taking twice as long to do everything, frequently do it the hard way and always keep everything inside the pan. He does not wash as he goes. I take too long washing, inevitably messing up something cooking because I wasn't paying attention to the food. I assume it's all going to work out fine, and it usually doesn't; he's certain it will and it does."