We bought a cute little pork roast to make for dinner. I put it in the oven in a glass pan and roasted it up. After I took it out, I realized I’d completely forgotten to SEASON it. *sigh*
The potatoes turned out to be what the Irish call “floury”, and began to dissolve in the boiling water.
I had a couple of granny smith apples. I made applesauce with them. I burned it.
Each of these things finished at a completely different time, and because the applesauce pan had burnt apples stuck to its edges, I did not have time/inclination to wash that pan and put the green beans on to boil so they’d be ready at the same time the potatoes were. I ended up washing the floury potato pan instead, making the veggies that much later.
Despairing, but confident I couldn’t make anything worse, I scraped the glass pan free of the juice and fat and put it into a cast iron pan and made gravy, in hopes that I might make something to make the bland pork roast slightly more interesting to eat.
My mother makes the best gravy in the world. I am horribly trepidatious about making gravy. I’ve only made it about six times, which of course makes me *more* trepidatious about making it, because I have no practice.
This was easily the best gravy I have ever made. It was good enough to be Mom’s. It made the pork roast taste wonderful.
The apples, it turned out, were barely scorched, and the applesauce turned out just fine.
Still, I think maybe I should stay out of the kitchen for the rest of the night.
Sounds like the end results were scrumptious!
All of these trials, and their happy conclusions, indicate a need for a glass of wine and a quiet night relaxing.
Every time I log onto the f-list, there’s a culinary disaster – we’ve had two over the last week, with an oxtail stew (slow cooked for several hours) that had the family re-enacting the ‘Chaplin eats shoe’ scene, and a bizarre episode with some baked potatoes that, er, didn’t. We just had the same potatoes, roasted, and they were fine. Baked, however, in the same oven, you could have fired them from cannon.
I was starting to think it was just me, but I think now that there is some astrological issue at work. Glad you rescued your own dinner!
Christmas Eve day I put a double batch of molasses-oatmeal bread makings in the bread maker to make dough for me, to make rolls … an hour and a half later I paused in making pies to take a look, and realized I hadn’t put in any YEAST. Bother! I dumped the yeast in, squooged things around a little, and fired up the machine again with the same lump of soggy flour and molasses and oatmeal, etc, hoping it would work out. It did, but MAN was the dough sticky. I felt like I was wearing dough gloves when I was done shaping the rolls – no amount of butter on the fingers was any use. :P
Oh well, they tasted perfectly normal.
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but, aren’t you married to Ted? Why do you need to be in the kitchen in the first place? :P
I can make about five things decently. That is enough to get us by every week since we go over my in-laws on the weekends and we aren’t home together at least one weeknight and therefore, no cooking is required. *sigh*
The one problem with marrying a chef is that they usually work evenings, so in fact I end up making dinners most nights. :)
When the potatoes ‘fall apart’ like that, there’s a little trick you can use…
Dump them into a bowl(plastic or metal) and place it in a hot water bath, so that they keep warm. Grate some chese and mix in, then mash it properly. Then pretend that you PLANNED to make mashed potatoes all along. ;-)
You may need to add milk, but that all depends on the cheese and how dry the potatoes are.