I'm now a full two weeks into this semester and was finally able to see two of my favorite people tonight, Lacey and Addie. When Lacey and I lived in our first apartment, we decided it'd be nice for our group of friends to share the cooking responsibilities. Thankfully even though we're not roommates anymore, this tradition has continued. Tonight was my turn.
When I cook for myself I very rarely have any problems. Actually, aside from the hamburger broiling accident, I can't think of any. Let me fill you in on the Hamburger Broiling Accident of 2013. My mom got me hooked on these frozen hamburger patties that you can buy at Walmart, so I decided I'd get some and have a burger one night. Of course, she normally cooks them in a skillet, but I'd seen how they pop and sizzle so decided that wasn't for me (popping and sizzling make me nervous), so I read the back of the package until I found the directions for broiling them. How hard could broiling be? I actually don't guess it was too difficult, terrifying, but not difficult. I followed the directions perfectly and set a timer to let me know when to flip them. A few minutes later I began hearing strange noises coming from my oven. I think to myself, "well that can't be good" and walk into the kitchen to check on the burgers. I open the oven door and am greeted by flames. Yes FLAMES, there were flames in my oven. I slam the door shut and spin around and grab the fire extinguisher from under the sink. This was when I began to question everything I've ever known about fire extinguishers, the main question being "can you even spray a fire extinguisher into a hot oven?". I decided against it and turn the oven off. After a few seconds, the flames subside and I'm only left with a partially charred, partially raw hamburger patty, but it was ok since the hunger had been scared out of me. So I don't broil things anymore.
Anyway, now that we've gotten that out of the way, back to how I'm normally an amazing cook and a perfect whiz in the kitchen. Last week I decided to face my fear of frying things (remember, popping and sizzling) and made a batch of hot water cornbread, which is only one of my favorite foods ever. Although it wasn't nearly as delicious as my grandma's it was still pretty good, especially for a first attempt. Since it was such a success, I decided it'd make the perfect bread item to go with the pork chops and black-eyed peas I was planning to make for Lacey and Addie. Here's where it gets interesting.
I asked Lacey to text me when they were on the way so I could start frying the bread, it was then that I realized I wouldn't be able to let them in since I'd have batter all over my hands. You see, since getting Allie, I've trained my friends to knock rather than just coming on in so I don't have to worry about Allie getting by them and going out the door. So I had a brilliant idea, I'd put her leash on her and tie it to the handle of the refrigerator door. Don't do this, ever, it's not brilliant, it's really rather boneheaded, but we'll get back to that in a minute.
One of the only things that didn't work right when I made my first batch of hot water cornbread, was that the batter was a tad too thick, so this time, I planned to fix that by adding a little more water. Unfortunately, I added a little too much and that made it too thin. No problem, I'll just add more cornmeal. Too thick. Added more water. Too thin. Discovered I was out of cornmeal, so decided it'd just have to work. Although I'm doing better about not screaming any time the grease pops (actually didn't even wear a hoodie this time), there ain't no way that I"m gonna put something into a skillet half full of grease with my bare hands, I use tongs instead. This worked fine when I made this last week, however, this batter was pretty thin and wasn't sticking together very well, so my patties were really just little lumps of batter in the skillet. I remembered that I had an unopened box of 3 Cheese Texas Toast in my freezer, so decided to scratch the whole hot water cornbread idea and just pop some of the toast in the oven. This is what was happening when Lacey and Addie started knocking on my door.
I called for them to come in, but they didn't hear me, so I went and opened the door. Well, when Allie realized that people were here and that they were actually coming in, she got super excited and came sliding across the floor with the handle to my refrigerator door still tied to the end of her leash. Thankfully I am somewhat mechanically inclined and was able to fix this later, so no harm done. Thank goodness, I really wasn't looking forward to explaining to maintenance how the refrigerator door handle just fell off on its own.
I explain to my guests the disappointing news that we will be having toast rather than the deliciousness that is hot water cornbread, and that we'll have to wait about 5 minutes for it to be ready. Thankfully they were good sports. When the bread is done, I begin making us some tea in the Keurig and go to get some ice out of the freezer. My freezer has been in an iffy mood here lately, Some days it does its job and there are no problems, then other days it decides that it just doesn't wanna freeze things and I get to eat ice cream soup. Apparently, today was one of the days that it decided it was tired of doing what freezers do. The ice trays that I'd refilled and placed in the freezer last night were mostly filled with really cold water. Some were kind of frozen, but when you touched them the delicate icy shell would break exposing their liquid centers. I did manage to get a few frozen ice cubes into our glasses and we enjoyed lukewarm peach tea with our supper, which was also lukewarm by this point.
Moral of the story, nothing ever goes as planned, especially when other people are there to witness it. Thankfully I have awesome, understanding friends who still seemed to enjoy their dinner, cold pork chops and all.
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