Accomplishments today;
Making an unholy mess out of the kitchen...
To explain;
I had a full day planned in the kitchen, but blew it from the get go. I'm here to tell you that starting a planned full day of cooking with a
dishwasher already full of dirty dishes is a Very Bad Idea. (So is dawdling over coffee after breakfast, but that's another story entirely.) Those errors were further compounded by not realizing that both dishes I had planned to cook used the same simple piece of equipment at the same time, obviously another Very Bad Idea.
First onto the the stove this morning was my
Brunswick Stew. At any rate what was supposed to have been done in the morning became the work of early afternoon. Finally after getting all the ingredients assembled and slowly simmering, I looked at the clock and figured I'd better get dinner started.
Corned Beef and Cabbage in honor of
St. Patrick's Day, already running very late in getting started and it too had to slowly simmer.
Disaster. Two dishes, both of which had to
simmer very slowly on a
gas stove, both of which were running late in the making. One
flame tamer, two pots which had to simmer very slowly, and the hour already far later than it should have been. What followed was three hours of juggling pots trying to get both things to cook properly. In the end I chose to save the stew, as it thickened I could no longer prevent it from burning without the flame tamer. The corned beef would still be edible even if cooked too fast.
In the end as it continued to grow late and the corned beef was still not done, we had the Brunswick Stew for dinner. (And I forgot to add the beer to the stock the corned beef was cooked in, and forgot to drink the beer that had been chosen to accompany it. Some days you can't win for losing.) When the Corned Beef and Cabbage was done, it was carefully set aside for later in the week.
Between the two dishes, breakfast, lunch, and My Lady Wife doing a little cooking of her own, every horizontal surface in the kitchen is covered with dirty dishes awaiting their turn in the dishwasher, or for those in the drainer to dry so others may be washed.