Friday, July 11, 2008

Yet another domestic failure

I think I have shared on this site the fact that domestic tasks are not really my thing. Mostly because I don't really like them. At all.

Anyway, last night I had yet another cooking fiasco. I had this great idea, being inspired from my domestic friends, to make double batches of meals and put half in the freezer for another meal. This is, apparently, a great plan for my friends but it has not been so effective for me. Basically, if I go to buy all the ingredients I am bound to forget something. Not that I intend to, but when you are standing in the aisle contemplating chicken and you glance at the cart only to notice that the baby houdini has managed to squirm and squeeze and very expertly extract himself from the strap of the baby seat and is just about to launch himself the 12 inches into your not ready arms, well you get distracted and sometimes you forget something.

All that aside, I usually arrive home with some of what I need and then by the time I manage to find time when Noah is home to go to the store again, or gather the courage to once again brave Target with the kids, the rest of the ingredients have been used for other culinary pursuits or have gone bad.

But last night I had all of the ingredients for my chicken enchilada recipe and I was ready to go. I focused on the task at hand very diligently despite the chaos surrounding me and pretty soon I had it ready. 1/2 ready for the freezer and the other 1/2 ready to go into tortillas for supper. And then I tried some and just about died. I grabbed the jar of picante sauce. It said "hot" in pink, jaunty letters.

I thought my family may not notice so I served it to the children with not a single word. Deacon had a bite and said, "It is good, mom!" but then his eyes got big and he grabbed his milk and started chugging it down. "Mom it is so SPICY!" Roman didn't even try it. Lincoln took a bite and cried. Then he took another bite and cried. Then he took another bite and cried and I took it away and gave him something else. He looked suspicious and didn't try it. I think I have destroyed any trust he ever had in me.

Noah even thought it was, "a little much." Somehow I have to dilute the potency when it is time to cook the batch that I stored!

This latest "oversight" reminds me of my last 2 "situations". I made a lovely dessert and the parts of it were in various bowls on the counter awaiting their pending transfer to my brand new fancy bowl. I climbed on a chair to get the bowl. In the process I knocked down a vase that was on a shelf and it broke and shattered its glass into my dessert. So much for that.

The next mishap happened after a brillant attempt to make a gigantic batch of monster cookies. I thought if I had a lot of them I could freeze them and then always have a bag of cookies to bring to all the parties and get togethers I may be invited to. Or I could just eat them 10 at a time. So I got the kids ready and we headed to the grocery store for everything we needed. It was a harrowing trip, but I managed to get everything. I carefully put in the 2 jars of peanut butter, the dozen eggs, all the white sugar and the brown sugar and I was mixing it all up in my biggest bowl. And then it was time to add the 18 cups of oats. So I started mixing them in. I was 2 cups short- but never fear, I had an unopened container in my pantry! Finally, something was going right! So I dumped the last 2 cups in and furiously mixed. And that is when I saw it. Something moved! My unopened container of oats had been full of bugs! So much for the cookies. I haven't made them since.

I wish I had some.

4 comments:

joolee said...

I would love to be able to pull out some frozen cookies and eat 10 at a time;) Now if I could only offset that with a lil triathlon training.

Unknown said...

I can tell you don't live overseas...what is a little bug in some good cookies? Don't tell me you threw it all away):

New Adventures said...

What a grand idea...to have dozens of cookies! The bugs would have died in the oven, and no one would have known if you didn't say anything...it's just a little extra protein anyways.

Anonymous said...

I got a kick out of this post! Keep trying! You'll get it eventually! Maybe you should do some bulk cooking on a day when hubby can take all the boys out of the house for a day or when Grandma can babysit (or Becki!)

I just discovered some already baked frozen cookies in my freezer today that I had forgotten were there and I have been eating way more than I should.....