Where do I even begin? Fellow kRazy kAtz readers, today was not a good day in the kitchen, LET ME TELL YOU.
It was a pretty normal day; got up and went to work, came home, chilled out for about an hour, then I started dinner. This is when everything started to hit the fan. For dinner I was cooking; Eggs, Rice, and Bacon...mm mm mm! I decided the best way to start was to get the bacon going, I absolutely LOATHE cooking bacon, the grease splatters and frankly I am a complete woos when it comes to grease splatters! So I decided I would put the bacon in the oven, simple and easy, I can put it into the oven, set the timer and finish cooking the rest of dinner, sweet!
NO NO NO IT WAS NOT SWEET. I laid the bacon on tin foil on a baking sheet and placed them in the oven, I did some online research to make sure the bacon came out nice and crispy, but not over done. I THOUGHT it was perfect, alas when you assume things all it does is make an Ass out of U and Me.
Continuing on this journey: I plugged in the Instant Pot, put in 5 cups of water and 4 cups of rice, plenty enough for the family. Again I set the timer on the Instant Pot and moved on to cooking the Eggs, I have cooked rice in this pot a thousand times and I had double checked that this was in fact the right way to do it because I am extremely OCD when it comes to these things and I follow recipes to a ‘T’.
Next step was cooking the eggs over easy, super simple and quick to cook up once you hit the right temp in the skillet, if you break a yoke it doesn’t really matter because someone is going to eat it either way.
There was no butter in the fridge and since I grew up cooking with oil I wasn’t worried about it. I heated up the pan, cracked my first two eggs and this is when sh** started getting real. First thing I noticed was that my eggs wouldn’t slide across the pan even with a bit of encouragement. Then I cracked both yokes while trying to un-stick the eggs from the pan (feel like I need to reiterate that there IS oil in the pan and they should not be sticking this badly!). Giving up on my first batch I decided to just make a small batch of scrambled eggs for the two younger girls. I set them aside, pour a little more oil in the bottom of the pan and crack two more eggs, again they are sticking, this time I am much more gentle and finally get them flipped. Now instead of a nice white egg it has burnt black pieces all over it. This is when I start to get a bit frazzled because there is just enough eggs for everybody and this is my second batch that isn’t turning out right. I toss the eggs onto a plate and when I go to crack my third batch the egg cracks and the shell collapses while popping the yoke and some tiny little shells fall into the pan. My genius self decides to reach in and pick them out with my fingers…..so not a good idea.
In this moment I start smelling something weird. I turn around and open up the oven door as smoke starts billowing out the oven. A slew of non English words spew out of my mouth as I stare in horror at the now burnt to a crisp bacon. I immediately turn off the oven as the smoke starts filling the kitchen. I run over to turn off the stove with my terrible eggs slow cooking in the pan and I close the kitchen doors not wanting to smoke out the rest of the house. I then snag some oven mitts and take the bacon (if you can even call it that at this point) out of the oven and place them on some pot holders to cool down. My eggs are a disaster and the bacon is burnt to ash, at this point I am frustrated beyond words and ready to tear my hair out so I pick up the phone and call my boyfriend, I explain the situation and all he says is, “I’ll take care of it,” and hangs up. Meanwhile I am pacing the kitchen with the two exterior doors wide open to let the smoke outside and the two interior doors shut to keep it from spreading throughout the rest of the house.
The Instant Pot goes off so I release the pressure valve and sit back shaking my head wondering what else could possibly go wrong. I turn the lid and THANK GOD the rice looks perfect, Whew…!
A few minutes later my boyfriend and his godfather walk into the house with a fresh batch of groceries and as I am explaining this story to them his godfather looks at me and says, “Well, take the win!” I look at him like he has four heads as he continues. “The rice came out great!” I just burst out laughing unsure how to feel in that moment because I cannot understand how in all my life I have never truly destroyed dinner in such a fashion and yet this one time it was an absolute disaster.
Standing there flustered my boyfriends godfather then comes over and starts explaining that the pan I was using is a P.O.S. ….Greaaat. As for the bacon? Well we’re going to overlook that for now. This time we get out a good pan and he shows me the right technique, this time using butter that he picked up. He cooks a few eggs and then he lets me try and I actually flip the egg in the pan without a spatula!!! For the first time!! Another win out of this chaotic nightmare!
Once dinner is on the table and we are sitting down and we are talking about our days his godfather chimes in and says, “By the way, you didn’t even have to cook eggs and bacon tonight, today is Tuesday, which was green beans and spam.”
…
I drop my head into my hands and start laughing so hard tears start streaming down my face. All day I had thought that it was Wednesday when in reality I was living a day ahead of everyone else. Just the cherry on top of this now hilarious endeavor!
Bottom line here is that cooking is an art, if you are having a rough day and aren’t in any mood to cook….you probably shouldn’t! Take the wins as they come, as small as they may seem in the midst of a disaster they are what will allow you to keep smiling and moving forward. Thank you so much for reading this short snippet of my life and the craziness that tends to ensue. Here at kRazy kAtz it is okay to mess up, nobody is perfect (clearly!). Keep on sparkling fellow readers!
-Krissy