Why I Don't Cook

It all started a couple weeks ago over a bottle of wine.  Daniel, my Colombian friend, stated that it was my turn to cook.  He had made us a couple delicious meals already and wanted to witness my skills in the kitchen.  Nnooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As most people know, I cannot even make a jello look appetizing, and except for being the mashed potato beater for family dinners (and let's get real: that's only because Monica moved away), I am always delegated to be the dish washer, a job I love and am reasonably good at (though a bit slow some people say....ahem...Jill.)

Since being in Colombia, I literally have not cooked once, unless you count popcorn, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or boiling water.  Needless to say, I was quite nervous and began asking several people on what I should make.  Wanting something simple and quick, I decided on Mama's Poor Man's Stroganoff.  Although I had never made it, the directions were straight-forward enough, and the recipe seemed fool-proof.  Boy, was I wrong.  

Let's start with the ingredients, shall we?  

1 pound lean ground beef:  Yes, they have ground beef here, but it sure didn't look lean to me.  

1 can cream of mushroom soup:  In Colombia?  Nah.  Why have cans?  Instead, there are packets of dried up soup that you just add water to.  

Beef bouillon:  Honestly, I forgot about this ingredient.  Probably for the best...

Garlic salt:  There was no plain garlic salt, so I got a mixture of different seasonings.  

Dash of pepper:  Finally! Something I have in the house!

Noodles:  Ah, packaged food.  So easy. 

It started off as such a lovely afternoon: playing cards, taking a walk to get some ice cream, etc.  The whole time, though, my stomach was churning.  

The hour had arrived.  Kicking Daniel out of the kitchen (biggest mistake ever), I proceeded to pretend like I knew what I was doing.  

First step: browning the meat on medium to medium-high heat.  Hahahahahahahaha!  Please.  Like I have more than one setting on my stove.  It's high.  Period.  

Of course, there was no place to drain the grease from the meat, so after scooping some down the sink, I just left the rest in there. 

This is where is started getting a little tricky.  Do you see the packets of cream of mushroom soup?  Well, I added water to one of the packets, but there barely seemed to be enough there to make sauce.  This meant that I should add another packet, right?  Ummm....no.  Common sense would have told me that would make the meat too salty, but it had flown out the window with the rest of my cooking abilities long ago.  

Suddenly, the meat started looking like the cheapie brand of dog food.  Oh no.  Daniel must have seen the distress on my face and came over to check things out.  Tasting the meat, he tried to remedy the situation by adding cream to tone the salty flavor down.  Nope.  Didn't work.  At this point in time, I had just about given up any hope of a good meal.  Daniel finished the noodles (the one thing that turned out) and dished us out some truly unappealing mush, and we settled down to eat.  

If it wasn't for the wine, the meal would've been a huge flop.  Actually, it was a gigantic flop, but the wine eased the embarrassment a tad.  As Daniel was shoveling down the meal (trying to just get the pain over with, I'm sure) and commenting on the nice flavor, I was downing glass after glass of water.  Dehydration had kicked in after the first bite, and it was only getting worse.  

I am a huge fan of always finishing everything on my plate and never wasting any food.  I believe it shows then just how horrible my stroganoff was when I threw a third of my plate and all the leftovers away.

The moral of the story: When one has a maid that cooks for you, there is no point in doing anything by yourself, most of all cooking.

Thankfully, Daniel is cooking again this weekend, eggplant lasagna, I believe.  My job?  Pour the wine and wash the dishes.  All is right in the world again.