Summer Blog Challenge Days 9 and 10

Day 9 - Your Worst Cooking Disaster

I asked Trevor what he considered my "worst cooking disaster;"  he immediately said "that awful beef stroganoff!" 

I said, "You think the stroganoff was worse than the 'chicken noodle incident'?" 

He said, "Oh yeah...the chicken noodles were much worse." 

I said, "I'll write about the chicken noodles and crock pot, then."

"I thought you meant the chicken noodles where Lola ate all of the bones."  he quipped.

Boy, I have a lot of disasters!!  I'll write about both of the chicken noodle incidents...you can decide which was worse.  First of all, I should explain that I make excellent comfort food in the form of chicken noodles.  This is not soup; it is a thick chicken, homemade (or frozen) egg noodle, and corn concoction that you then pile on top of mashed potatoes.  In Nebraska, this is comfort. 

Many people buy a rotisserie chicken, but I would rather start from scratch.  So I put a whole chicken in a crock pot, spice it up, and let it cook for about four hours.  When it cools a bit, I pick the chicken off the bones, throw the bones away (unless I need to make some broth), and proceed with the recipe.

Incident #1 - Lola on a Saturday afternoon

I had picked the carcass clean and thrown away the bones.  I thought, "I better take that out right away so no body gets any stupid ideas about eating chicken bones."  At about that time, Trevor got home from work and wanted me to go with him to the bank...meaning we didn't have much time...we just needed to go...

When we got home, we walked into puppy disaster.  Shiloh didn't have any grease on him...he slept through the whole thing on his rug in the bathroom.  Booger's face was so greasy he looked like he'd used hair oil to grease back his entire head.  And then there was Lola...super greasy as well. 

Here's the thing...Lola INHALES her food--her Indian name is HOOVER.  She always eats like she's been starved for years.  So we assumed she had probably eaten the bulk of the bones...seeing as there were NO bones left.  I pretty much figured Booger got the hair gel look from repeatedly going into the garbage can looking for goodies that Lola had already swiped and eaten.

While Lola hung her head as though she knew she was in trouble, she couldn't stop her tail from wagging.  Her mood was "Doggie Glee!"  Our mood was, "I hope it doesn't kill the stupid dog."

She was okay that night, so we thought we had made it through.  Then on Sunday around noon she started barfing and puking and chucking...you get the picture...By 2 pm, on SUNDAY, Trevor decided we were going to have to call the ER Vet.  Oh, goodie!  It's $100 just to have a vet look at her on Sunday.  We took her in and found out that she was one very sick pup.  She had to stay at the vet for two nights and three days.  What did she have to have done?

• x-rays each day to make sure nothing was stuck where it shouldn't be
• IV fluids and medicines
• Some high-dollar stuff that "gels" to the  chicken bones so that they can move through the intestines without tearing the intestinal tract

So, my $2.91 chicken I had thought was such a bargain ended up costing us $519.00...for me, that equals a house payment!  Holy cow...er, chicken!

Incident #2 -- Just Trying to be Nice

The very next time I decided to make chicken noodles, incident #2 occurred.  My good friend and neighbor, Jane, had her daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren (who live out of state) at her house unexpectedly because her son-in-law's father had passed away.  They were all taking care of all the business that goes with that situation, so I told her I would bring them dinner. 

Comfort Food = Chicken Noodles

By now we had a covered garbage can, so Lola was not going to get to the spoils of the day.  I had everything made up and ready to go, but the noodles were not cooking as fast as I wanted.  I had left everything in the crock pot to cook so that I could just take it over to them, and they could eat whenever they were ready.  Usually I cook everything on the stove...apparently the crock pot just couldn't put out enough heat.

My brilliant idea was to just put the crock pot pan on the stove top.  That should work...it's not like the crock pot pan is not made for heat!  Well....

This was one of those ceramic crock pots, and I found out rather spectacularly that it is NOT made for stove top cooking.  I was stirring the chicken noodles, and CRACK!  It sounded like a gun shot.  All of the sudden I had chicken noodle juice going all over the top of the stove. 

Aargh!  I lifted up the pan, and only the sides came up.  Chicken noodles went EVERYWHERE...all over the top of the stove, down the side of the stove, inside the slots in the oven door.  Dogs were all around me trying to get the bounty.  I screamed for Trevor to come help me get the dogs out of the kitchen (he was outside.)  He came running in, took in the mass chaos, and brilliantly yelled, "What the hell happened in here?!?"

By now, I had turned off the burner, taken the side of the pan over to the sink, together we got the dogs locked out of the kitchen, I'd told Trevor what had happened, burst into tears, and my normally perfect husband said, "Didn't you use your brain at all?" 

Now I was pissed off...do NOT question my intelligence in the kitchen!  It took us quite a while to clean up the mess...mostly in glaring silence...Under my breath, I very snottily said, "I did use my brain...I was trying to get things ready for Jane."  And you know what he did?  He laughed...loudly...It took me a few days to get over the incident.  I told him mom about what he said...I told Jane and her daughter what he said...I told any woman who would listen what he said...Grr.

I took the mashed potatoes over to Jane and told her the whole story.  Her daughter Amy said she'd actually broken two crock pots like that.  Jane said she wouldn't think that you couldn't put the pot on the cook stove.  I felt marginally better.

I offered to buy them pizzas to go with their mashed potatoes, but they actually had a whole ham.  It all worked out just fine in the end.

Which incident do you think was the worst?

Day 10 -- Cost aside, what famous piece of artwork would you have in your home?

I'm not really into "fine art" but I love military recruiting posters from World War I and II.  I'd probably take an original lithograph of one of those.

Have a great Sunday, and take care of you!