I go on Pinterest and find recipe’s I like. I save them under healthy recipes, slow cooker recipes, fun foods. It’s all good. When I click on on a food photo it takes me to the author’s page and I read about another great, easy to cook meal. What I never read is someone saying, this recipe is a disaster. Toss it, start over, I punked yah. No, it’s all good, all the time. No mistakes. In baseball lingo, a perfect game, no runs, no hits, no errors, no one reaches first base.
The way I see it, A disaster meal has side benefits. Maybe you have someone coming for dinner and you never want them to come again – today’s recipe’s for you. Maybe you want to break up, don’t have the courage to say it, let your food do the talking with today’s recipe. Maybe you’re a masochist. If you are, making a meal like the one I am about the describe is going to make you feel terrible – that’s good, right?
My meal plan started out with a great idea. I’ll make an easy, healthy, low cleanup time meal. I’ll brag about it on my blog. Guy’s Grocery Games will invite me to compete. My great chef dreams went downhill faster than the Olympic bobsledding team.
“What did you do, Ray?” you ask.
Okay, I’ll make a clean breast of it. No, I didn’t cook chicken breasts. I wish I did. On a scale of ten, how easy is it to cook a chicken breast? I’d give it a 10 (this is the typical guy response for cooking any food – maybe I should have grilled this meal – I’m talking real guy talk now).
“What did you attempt to cook, Ray. You’re stalling. Spill the beans. Turn state’s evidence. Go into the witness protection program.”
I glad you didn’t mention waterboarding, an IRS audit, or being asked to eat raw eggs (how Silvester Stallone did it, I’ll never know).
Here’s what happened. I decided to make quinoa burgers (they were in a box in the freezer, precooked) Easy, right? Not. I cut up onion, a poblano and red pepper. I added mushrooms. I put my veggies in a pan coated with EVOO. What can go wrong? It’s all going along fine. The veggies are eighty percent done, I add the quinoa burgers.
The only thing that can go wrong is guy think. That’s right, guy think. I think I have enough time to wheel the trash container out to the curb, come back for the recycle containers and put them next to the trash container. Do I leave well enough alone? Oh no, two boys who live a street over walk by tossing a football. I hold up my arm. They flip it to me. I need to prove to them and myself I am Tom Brady’s backup. Five minutes later the light bulb goes off. No, not a light bulb, the smoke alarm. I run a fly pattern into the kitchen. I take the skillet out the back door. I hope no one called 911. Even the birds fly away. Any reader like charred veggies and two hard globs of quinoa?
911 for a food disaster. 1) always use a non-stick pan. 2) Open the windows – turn on all the fans. 3) Phone a friend, and tell your friend your buying dinner, in this case, pizza.