Recipe for Disaster

That old adage, Use It or Lose It, turns out to be true, Reader. My S.E.X. tricks aren't the only things that have gotten quite rusty.  Since we have a usable kitchen, and I've been actually using the kitchen, and cooking meals so we could eat at home just like Normal Folk, I've realized that my cooking skills are also in need of a major tune-up.

Eight years of a sucky kitchen, which encouraged us to just go out to eat and let other people do the cooking for us, has resulted in me not really being good at making meals anymore.

Last weekend I made some stew. First mistake was thinking that I could re-purpose leftover steaks into stew. Stew needs to be made with stew meat, and properly floured and browned and seasoned, to help the broth situation.

Steak stew, while it may sound like it could be a winner, really was not.

It wasn't helped by the fact that the broth was lame, so I added in some chipotle pepper paste, which made it not only NOT tasty, but burny as it went down.

And I also don't know how to cook for just two people. I think I'm cooking for an orphanage, because we had about 50 gallons of it, and it all had to be pitched out.

My Mister tried to muscle through it, and he gamely ate two bowls the first night. But considering it as leftovers for Monday night's dinner, enough was enough and we pitched it out. But not over the Ravine (I'm starving the Zombies out), we responsibly disposed of the burny steak stew.

It was a damn-shame waste of precious Yukon Gold potatoes.

And I could feel my grandmother turning over in her grave at the Waste.

That wasn't the only Kitchen Fail, sadly to say.

I was on my own for supper a couple of nights last week as My Mister had to work, and decided I'd have my old standby, eggs and toast. I love cooking simple suppers for myself. I would live on breakfast for dinner if I lived alone. Alone, I am so cheap and easy.

But anyway, I decided to get all fancy and fry up some of the Yukon Gold potatoes, to have a fried potato-and-egg dinner while I watched reruns of Big Bang Theory. I'm exciting like that. 

I used to make great fried potatoes. Crispy and brown.

These? I don't know exactly what went wrong, but they were limp and greasy. I want to lay the blame at the potato's feet - maybe Yukon Gold's are too fancy for hillbilly grease frying? - but maybe it is just something else that has lost it's mojo.

The latest not-quite-right kitchen experience was last night, when I made from-scratch guacamole.  I had a recipe to follow, the one really good thing I took out of my marriage - my ex-husband's mother's guac recipe.  I followed it! Sort of. I was about an avacado short, and could have maybe used an extra tomato, and added just a tich too much lemon juice.

We ate it - it didn't need to become Zombie Food - but we were very aware of the lemon juice. I will try this once again, though, because I do think I can perfect it. Maybe.

Today, I'm try-try-trying-again in the kitchen, making a chicken-n-dumplin's crockpot recipe. If this fails, that's it - no more trying out new things.  We will live on bad sex and fried eggs. 

My Mister has more at stake than he realizes with that crockpot full of chicken and carrots.