Two weeks ago, I had a disasterous week in the kitchen. It started Sunday when I tried to make biscuits for dinner to go with our soup. Although I make them pretty often, I somehow managed to set the oven on fire with this batch. I turned my back on them for a few minutes and the next thing I knew, smoke was billowing out of the oven and flames were leaping about inside. The biscuits themselves were not burned per se, but they had a smokey, woodsy taste that made them virtually inedible (at least the the female members of the house). The next day I tried to whip up some quick lemon bars (also an easy standby at our house) for an fhe treat. This time I had, Ella, my 'big helper' helping, and found myself so distracted that I forgot to put the sugar in. I suspected something was wrong when they didn't rise in the oven. My suspicions were confirmed when I took a tremulous bite-- lemony eggy goo. 0 for 2. On Wednesday I attended my Indian cooking class and watched a master create recipes I had no hope of duplicating (she started by cracking a coconut and grating it herself). On the upside, I managed to buy a baby lemon squeezer that I know my sister who is recooperating from labor has been covetting since I told her about the one I bought last month at my class.
On Thursday, I hosted our enrichment's cooking interest group. How I got put in charge of such a group is really beyond me, given my cooking track record (especially since I was never notified that I was in charge of the group until a friend told me she saw my name at the top of the sign up sheet). I purposefully didn't cook anything on Tuesday or Wednesday just to make sure the kitchen wasn't smokey or incinerated when the group came over. Luckily other people prepared most of the food, so there were no mishaps. the following week it was business as usual when I tried the biscuits again. After a few bites I started to think something was wrong again (harder to detect without any telltale flames). I rechecked the recipe and realized that I had put in 4 tablespoons of baking soda instead of 4 teaspoons. That's three times the amount called for, and it definitely affected the taste. Andrew didn't even notice the lapse (he's accustomed to pretty marginal food) and ate through the whole batch, which is lucky because I got some indigestion from the few bites that I took of my first and couldn't touch any of the others. I wish I could blame my kitchen mishaps on the distracted state of mind I have when pregnant, or when a two-year-old is "helping" in the kitchen, but the truth is, it's not the first time I've lit an oven on fire. At least this time no buildings in midtown Manhattan were evacuated.
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