Monday, March 1, 2010

This is why I don't COOK!

Originally this post was going to be about how I was starting out March eating healthy, exercising at least 3 times per week and finishing up old WIP's.
And then I decided to make myself one of my healthy new meals and it all just went to hell after that.
A couple of weeks ago the boy and I ate at this really great vegan restaurant, and we both discovered quinoa. Well knowing that I would be embarking on this new adventure to get back to the better eating, better living, back in shape me, I looked up a few recipes and headed to the health food store to get me some quinoa.
One of the recipes that I was most excited about was Cheesy Quinoa Pilaf with Spinach.
Now a few years ago, I was on a really great diet program that not only taught me how to eat right, but got me cooking. And it was great, and before you start the jokes about the only reason I lost weight was because I was eating my own cooking, I'll have you know that the people that I worked with were amazed at the wonderful lunches that I brought in everyday that I had cooked myself. Most people didn't even realize that I was on a diet until the weight started dropping off.
But I digress, my main rule for a recipe is that it can have no more than 5 ingredients and can only be cooked in one pan, pot or dish.
I should have known better when I read the ingredients, but I thought if I can tackle going back to school then I can take on a dish with 7 ingredients.
So fully armed with quinoa, olive oil, sunflower seeds, garlic, spinach leaves, lemon juice and goat cheese gouda, I decided to make myself dinner.
All was going well at first, I started the quinoa to boil and put my pre-wrapped sweet potato in the microwave to cook.
Then I realized that the goat cheese gouda had to be shredded and I didn't have a shredder. No worries, a few years ago I asked my parents for a food processor for Christmas and I hardly ever use the thing anymore but I remembered that you could shred cheese with it, even though I never have.
So the quinoa is finished cooking and the instructions say to drain it in a mesh strainer, well all I have is a regular strainer, and so I get the brilliant idea to cover the holes with a paper towel and let it drain that way. So far so good.
Now I have to heat up the olive oil in a seperate pan and then add the sunflower seeds, all is well.
I am searching for the top to the food processor when I suddenly hear this long hiss coming from my microwave, it's the sweet potato, and the hiss is getting longer and louder.
Oh sh*t, it's gonna explode! Luckily it didn't it just sort of died down with a little pop at the end. Good, no exploding potato's tonight. I can sooo do this.
I have got the food processor out now and all hooked up, I take the skin off of my goat cheese gouda, stick it in the hole thingy at the top, turn it to 4 and proceed to food process. Only it's not processing the way it does on TV. It's kinda whiring and really slowly slicing my cheese.
Wait, slicing? No I need shredded cheese. So I take the food smoosher out, dig out the cheese that has lodged itself against the sides and flip the blade over. I am a genius, this is the shredding side, it says so right on the blade.
Bing! Sweet potato is done. Part one of dinner now complete.
I put another piece of cheese in the hole, slide the food smoosher in and hit the button, but again more whiring and a little grating, so I push harder.
And then I start to smell something funny, well the microwave just dinged so I know it's not that, the sunflower seeds aren't quite yet toasted and I have them on low heat so it's not that.....then I notice the food processor and the little knob at the top has a strange white goo forming around it's edge. And that's when I realize that the smell is the food processor engine overheating.
I immediatly stop it take the top off and the smell is worse. Melted plastic and goat cheese gouda do not smell good together. See.
Unfortunately the melted plastic has dried really quickly so I can't get to my cheese, but I found a wrench, tightened it around the melted thingy on top and cracked it away from the processer. Double unfortunately the bottom plastic under the blade has melted to and I can't get the blade to come off the container. Darn it, I want my cheese, I paid $7 for that cheese it is going in my pilaf!
I can see the cheese in the container I just have to take the blade off and then I will slice the gouda really thin. It's supposed to melt in with everything else anyway.


As you can see I got the blade bent back and got my $7 goat cheese gouda!

Now here's where things start to go a little hinky. I very easily found my food chopper and chopped my garlic added it along with the spinach to the oil, but I kinda didn't let enough water drain from the quinoa in my strainer and when I added it to the hot olive oil it started to pop a little like popcorn. Little bitty popcorn. But again, I was not to be defeated I was so close...
The last direction in the recipe is to add the cheese. So I grab a handfull and plop it in. That's when I start to notice that not all of the cheese looks like cheese. Some of that white stuff is ground up bits of plastic from the food processor. See.
In the background you can see that the goat cheese gouda is white, just like the bits of plastic that I picked out of the pan.
As I stand over the hot stove picking out bits of plastic from my pilaf and contemplating how in the hell I get myself into things like this, I realize that I have actually turned into my mother. Luckily the fire department didn't have to be called, but this one is definitly up there. Won't she be jealous?
Believe it or not I actually plated all of it up, and stood there looking at it, wondering if I should eat it.
I decided to go ahead, but be careful of little plasticy bits that I might have missed.
The first bite wasn't to bad, neither was the second. The third I thought was plastic, but it turned out to be a sunflower seed.
I kept alternating between the sweet potato and the pilaf. Not sure if the wonky taste is the goat cheese or the burnt plastic? Or a really jacked up mixture of both.
Bite 4 and 5 I definitly found plastic which made me realize that I needed to stop the madness and clean up the kitchen. Maybe I will try this dish again some time....after I buy a cheese grater.

Bon Appetite!
P.S. The next time ANYONE gives me crap about not cooking, I'm going to tell them to stick it!

The Great Texas Snowstorm

It snowed for two whole days!














































-originally posted 2/25/10, but somehow while taking out a picture I deleted the original- oops!