Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Confessions of the Kitchen-Challenged Mommy

I swear I've tried to become a good cook.  Over the years I have bought multiple cookbooks, I joined "Crock-Pot Girls" during that craze of 2011.  Plus, I'm brave in the kitchen.  I try new recipes and I even cook every night.  They say practice makes perfect, right?? Yet my poor family still reluctantly has to eat every churned, lifeless item I put in front of them since skill in the kitchen continues to elude me and I have analyzed it and broken it down to these core weaknesses:

  • Whenever a recipe calls for a spice or some weird ingredient I've never heard of, I just leave out that ingredient.  I figure this is just proof of my creative bravado in the kitchen.  My husband, on the other hand, figures that this is why my recipes never turn out (although every time he says this he looks like a scared kitten, suddenly cornered by an aggressive and overly-handsy toddler, so I'm not sure his opinion counts)
  • I have had ants in my pantry for weeks.  Every time I find them in the sugar, the pancake mix, or whatever, I remove the offending item, then I half-heartedly clean the shelf that item was on, and for some reason I convince myself that this will take care of the problem.  What is wrong with me?  The truly mind-boggling thing about this is that my friends and family would tell you I'm a germaphobe.  Clearly I'm not a very devoted one.
  • I have massacred the same recipe wild rice casserole twice and for some absurd reason I tried it again last night, convinced I could do better.   I have no idea what I did wrong this time, but let's just say it took 2.5 hours for the water to absorb into the rice instead of the 30 minutes the recipe called for.  I finally threw that particular recipe into the trash.  Clearly a recipe with 6 ingredients is too challenging for me.
  • Similar to how I don't use irons, I don't use candy thermometers, food thermometers or anything of the sort.  I can't really figure out how they work so I just have faith that following the recipe will be enough.  I know what you're thinking.  I'm either deluded or I need to stop using recipes that call for candy thermometers and meat thermometers.
  • Whenever I make something that's awful, my poor husband does his best to grin and eat it.  I don't even bother.  Sometimes I would truly rather starve than eat my own creation so I guess that could be part of my problem.  
Never fear though.  I do make a mean green smoothie (which surprisingly the kids love) and I make a decent chocolate chip cookie so my family won't starve.  And I called someone to come out and take care of the ants.  Plus, I found a great place by my house that will make casseroles for me to bake at home.  Hallelujah.  


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