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Well, you might be already entertaining the thoughts of fire engines rushing to my aid and ambulances on stand by.

I`m sorry I`ve not posted the results of My Valentine`s Day Special Dinner for all but I`ve had so many appointments this week, I`ve been hopping around like the proverbial chicken.

Now, onto the tale.

I`m only going to give you (pardon the pun) little tastes to whet your appetite for the grand finale. It will be worth the wait. I`ll walk you through each course and each........ reaction.

The Awkward Appetizer

I had printed off the recipe for the salad. I was planning on serving up this meal by candlelight and making for a very.... romantical evening. I had even purchased each ingredient personally. So I start preparing the salad. And I figure while I`m preparing the salad, I can do the main course at the same time. Uh uhh. You don`t get to know what the main course is yet. That will spoil the surprise. Let`s just say I decided to go out on a limb and fix something she likes better than steak.

Back to the salad. I gathered the iceburg lettuce (I think) and the Romanian hearts. I got the oranges and tangerines. I must have got a sour bottle of olive oil. Even Popeye would have turned this one out into the cold.

I got the peppercorns. Did you know them little things are spicy? Especially if you use waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much. Ahem.

Anyways, some men aren`t designed to multi-task. ESPECIALLY in the kitchen. While I`m battling with the main course, apparantly the green stuff must have soaked in the olive oil too long. Talk about a funky taste.

So anyways, I get the green stuff chopped and ripped and add the pepper (ground up of course). I chopped up the oranges and tangerines (didn`t see what to do with those so I guessed), and put in radishes and grated (I think that`s the word) cheese on top. I forgot the post about the dressing so I had purchased some french dressing. I don`t know if the french really know how to make dressing cause it sure didn`t taste right to me. Combined with all of those other tastes, I`m sure I couldn`t really tell.

So she comes home from work and sees me struggling. She was like a good wife and allowed me to cook the whole dinner. Of course, I couldn`t figure out why she was laughing furiously. You`ll see why in the next post (main course).

She took a bite of the salad while the other items are cooking and gagged. I mean literally gagged. Thank goodness I didn`t add the tomatoes. Of course at this point, I don`t think the salad could have gotten any worse. That`s when I found out the olive oil was a mix and contained some things I don`t think would have tasted good by itself.

The salad turned out sweet, sour, spicy, very wet, and tangy. Boy, talk about your variety of flavors. I told her that I was trying for the affect that if one taste didn`t please her that she was bound to find one somewhere in there that would.

We tossed the salad. Literally.

To be continued.............

Dan

I took a wild flyer, and guessed you were in trouble when you started with "I got the recipe for the salad!"

LOL! Dan, I think you`re going to have to come to terms with the concept "culinarily challenged." There are groups for this, as well as various not-for-profit foundations. It`s not something to be ashamed of, you can wear your sign proudly. People today, especially in western society, know enough not to laugh and point. We`re a much more progressive society these days.

I`ve never heard of someone putting dressing and olive oil in a salad ... or soaking the lettuce in the olive oil ....

Phew boy. Maybe I am in the wrong business. In my next life, I`m going to host cooking classes for men who can`t make a salad!

Very good story. You do have a unique cooking style. My friend gives online video cooking classes, you should check them out. Tell her I sent ya! http://www.healthandfitfest.com/chefz.bmp.

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I may just do that. Wait until you hear about the main course and the grand finale. Dessert.

The main course will be posted tonight. I have some errands to run today.

Just think about this. Anything that could go wrong..... DID!!

I usually follow directions pretty good but I see all of those cooks just getting rowdy in the kitchen and I guess I try to replicate them. If you don`t know how to do something, bluff. lol.

I didn`t know you weren`t supposed to mix and match on the olive oil and dressing. I figured the olive oil was to flavor the leaves a bit.

I`m glad I can be politically correct and call myself culinary challenged. I need to find out about how all of this works a bit. As you can tell, I never took home economics in high school. I was too busy skipping school and taking the agriculture courses. Then when I did settle down, I was busy making up for the year I took off. Still graduated on time though.

Though, now, it looks like I`ll have even less time. Time to go back and finish out my college degree. Not sure how I`ll get that to work out with my schedule.

Dan

Dan, I think I found an excellent cookbook for you. Try this one, and look up anything that uses the ingredients "take" and "out."

Very funny Craig. I think that should be my cookbook. Had another episode today cause I wanted to fix a roast but can`t figure out how in the world to do it. It even came in a kit with everything I needed. The instructions stated that I had two choices. Slow cooker (I would imagine a crock pot thing) or a conventional oven.

Now I`ve seen people use a crock pot. But it stated that you put the spice kit into 1 cup of water and put your pot roast in and add that. Now, it may be my imagination but due to my experience with no water in the hamburger that night, shouldn`t I be placing more water in there besides a cup???? And to do it in the conventional oven it says, find a pot usable in the oven. Well, all of our doggone pots have plastic handles on them. Don`t these manufacturers know what they are doing when they make these things? Also, the "slow cooker" will take 11-14 hours versus 3-4 hours in the oven. I was planning on cooking it for tonight, not have it in a week or two. My goodness. Why don`t they have warning labels?

I tried calling my mom, my wife, my grandmother, and anyone else I could think of to help me with this one. It just gets downright frustrating sometimes to see all of these people do this and not be able to cook.

This is one I may have to put down. It`s just not coming to me. Sorry about not posting the other info about the V Day dinner. I`ve just been sicker than a dog and not getting much done lately. I`ll post it soon though. I promise.

Dan

All ribbing (roast) aside :-) I`ve found that for certain people, and you may be one of them, understanding the science and chemistry behind cooking is the way to learn.

Cooking is pretty simple, in one sense. You take things you know you like to eat and combine them for some reason. You also avoid combining things that have conflicting tastes, which usually you already know about. So you wouldn`t pour chocolate syrup over a prime rib, or fix oatmeal with beer.

But people get all upset about the apparent mystery of recipes and ingredients, numbers and measures, and the complexities of difficult recipes. WHY are those recipes difficult or complex? In all cases, it`s because food cooking directly involves molecular changes to the various ingredients.

I enjoy Alton Brown because he gets into all that science. Others don`t at all like the man because he`s too detail-oriented. But I think if you take some time to really look into this chemistry and science, you`ll find it`s not so hard to cook.

One thing you might start with is the difference between roasting, baking, broiling, braising, and stewing. Look it up on Google.

I`ve done it Craig!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, (drum roll please)

My wife allowed me in the kitchen once again to make tonight`s dinner all by myself.

Well, one part of it anyways. I made the spaghetti sauce!!

When my wife walked me through the instructions of how to make the sauce, I made sure I had my digital recorder handy so that I could have a record of what to do. Very convenient device for the start up cook!!

I started with the lean meat we like so much only this time I put it in water to brown it first. I may have put just a little too much water in but my saying is, it`s better to have too much than not enough. I would hate to have a repeat of the hamburger steak. While I was browning my meat, I cut and diced the green bell pepper and yellow onion. Then by the time the I was done cutting (hopping back and forth between meat and veggies), the meat was browned. No overage of smoke tonight my friends.

I then placed my onion and pepper in the meat and let them cook. This time I cooked on the 6 setting. I kept stirring it around to make sure everything was getting an even cooking.

Then I got a little daring. lol. I looked in the cabinet for some seasoning. I found some pre manufactured Italian herbs and took a couple of palm fulls (just about the amount Emeril uses) and BAM! Added that to the mix.

Then I was going to let the water cook off like instructed. But as I said earlier, I think I added too much so I grabbed one of those sucker things with the bulb on the end. Only one incident here. Whatever you do, don`t get that booger filled up and then tilt it sideways. Squirts everywhere. Even if you don`t squeeze the bulb. Needless to say, I had a little mess to clean up.

Anyways, once I got the water and excess grease out, I let it cook just a hair  bit more. Then you know what I did????? I got the bottle of Ragu spaghetti sauce out and dumped it in. Easy folks, I`m just getting the hang of it. Don`t want to risk too much trying to make my own sauce.

I let this come to a bubble and then turn the heat down to 2 and let it cool down a bit. Don`t know why but that`s what I was told to do. Then when it stopped bubbling, I put the lid on it. Oh yeah, but I also tasted it and added salt and pepper and a hair bit more seasoning.

My wife won`t let me cook the noodles. She says I don`t get them done enough. Oh well. It`s a start!!

But it`s not over til the sauce is poured and the fat lady sings about my greatness. More to come.

Dan

Ok ladies and gentlemen,

Here`s tonight`s results.

I made a Chocolate Silk Pie.

Ingredients: One Banquet Dessert No Bake Kit.

I followed the directions and it looks like it turned out right. Only thing is, I`ve got one of those fancy industrial mixers and that takes a little getting used to. I just treated it like any other power tool and when it started slinging stuff, I turned it down.

When it says light and fluffy, it must mean the batter cause that stainless steel bowl sure was heavy when one handing it. Then when I tried spreading it out evenly the crumbs from the crumb shell starting coming apart. I just smeared it all as best I could to blanket it and put it in the fridge. Hopefully it will turn out ok.

NEXT POST IN JUST A FEW MINUTES, the remainder of the dinner gone bad.

 

Dan