I burned the pancakes again. But this is about so much more than burnt pancakes. I think I could possibly be one of the worst cooks ever, but it's about more than that too.
Seriously, I am a bad cook. If I thought that becoming a stay at home mom would enhance my cooking skills. Boy was I wrong. I actually think the situation is worse now because I attempt to cook more meals during the week so that we don't eat out or to just make life easier on the husband. Practice makes perfect, right? Not for me, I think the more I cook.... the worst it gets.
For the last 3 days, my husband has joked that I should make him pancakes since he recently had surgery. So this morning I thought I would give him something other than the regular bowl of Cheerios, which he's been getting because the first day he was home I made crappy eggs. I followed the instructions and made enough for what was supposed to be 10-12 pancakes. Whatever! The box must have been talking about "mini" pancakes because the first batch made about four, two of which were of course burned. Okay fine, obviously I needed to make more and so I doubled the recipe. I gave the black ones to the 2 year old, he'll literally eat anything, and was ready to try again.
Second batch, not so much better. For some reason it looked runny but I kept on throwing the mix onto the pan. What a mess! Really, a mess. Pancake mix was all over the counter and each pancake seemed to be burning more than the next one. And if they weren't burning they were so flat and runny that I couldn't really flip them over. The husband who could see the steam coming from my ears, nicely suggested that I turn the heat down. Obviously, I wasn't smart enough to think of that, because like I said before I am not a good cook. I gave him, or shall I say, I threw two of the unburnt pancakes onto a paper plate and not so politely asked if he would like butter or syrup because he was going to need it since they were probably going to taste like crap. Yep, nice loving wife that I am who was making pancakes, not even a full breakfast - just pancakes, for her husband was basically by now just throwing his food at him and telling him it wasn't going to taste any good anyways. He just sat down and said he would eat them plain. I don't think he wanted to ask me for anything else, hmmm.....wonder why?
Meanwhile, even though these might be the worst pancakes ever I was determined to use the mix I had already mixed up because I hate to be wasteful. I figured I could freeze the pancakes for the kids because they would eat them and if they were frozen they might not even be able to notice that they were previously burnt. So I starting bagging up the rest of the pancakes after the husband declined more, he only ate two. I started chucking my bagged pancakes into the freezer and throwing my dishes in the sink. I looked around and there was a huge mess. Now I had spent all of this time cooking pancakes no one would probably eat and I had to spend twice as much time cleaning up the mess. Seriously! I should have just went to McDonalds to buy him pancakes.
Anyways like I said before, it's about so much more than stupid burnt pancakes. The night before I had completely jacked up sugar cookies. No, I didn't try and make them from scratch. I actually bought the premade mix and was just trying to make ones in the shapes of xmas trees and stars. I wanted to have those cute sugar cookies that I see everyone else making. You know the kind that look all pretty and the neighbors pass out as gifts. I couldn't figure out how to get the dough into these cute little shapes without it all sticking together. So forget it, the kids had round sugar cookies that for some reason didn't cook all the way through and looked almost like small frisbees.
I could go on and on about all the baked goods and dinners I've ruined. There's chicken that's been so dried out we couldn't eat it or food that was salty we had to throw it out. There's been more than a few times we ate out even though I had "cooked" dinner. But even though I'm a bad cook, I think my anger and frustration is really coming from me feeling like I'm not good at something. And I think what makes it even more frustrating is that I'm not good at something that I feel like I'm supposed to be good at. Ever feel like everyone else can do something better than you? That's how it is for me with anything having to do with the kitchen. It doesn't help that anyone whose ever in the kitchen with me tries to "help" me by giving me advice. This I hate because I guess I'd like everyone to at least think I know what I'm doing. So it's not about the cooking but more about my unrealistic goal of wanting to do everything that I do well.
So I suck at cooking. I will probably never be good at it or enjoy being in the kitchen. There are a million other people who can do it better, actually I don't know anyone who does it as badly as I do. But it doesn't matter because in life there will be things that we won't be good at. I guess it' just as important to realize what we're not good at in life so that we can focus and spend time on the things that we do well. Figuring that out.....well that could be many more blog entries.....
By the way, did I tell you what the 9 yr olds teacher wants me to do for their Christmas party next week?
Make pancakes.
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