Confessions of an Indifferent Cook

Mannnnnn .. I need to give up cooking brown rice.  I just don't have an attention span that can survive the time it requires. 

The crockpot gently bubbling with a cassoulet and brown rice burbling away on the back burner, I did what I always do with rice ... looked in the fridge for something to toss into the rice when it was done.   I decided upon onions, peppers and celery with a dash of cilantro .. a nice bit of fresh sautéed veggies to offset the heavier beans.  I quartered, seeded, chopped, diced and tossed everything into the one good pan I have.

At this point I'm going to digress into my love/hate relationship with teflon coated cookware.  If you don't use it, you give yourself extra hours of endless toil at the kitchen sink, and when St. Peter tallies up your good deeds as you stand before the Pearly Gates, I'm sure he won't be considering how much time you spent at the sink.  If you do use it, you must go through the hunt for specialty tools to use while you cook and after, when you clean it.  It can't hit the dishwasher if you want it to last.  And you know what?  It doesn't last anyway.  Never.  Not even this nice Lagostina pan that eventually turned a dark almondy brown from its original golden hue.


Back to the topic at hand. See what I said about attention span?   Okay, now back to the rice which needed about 10 minutes and the sautéed veggies which had been turned down to 1.  Everything else was ready, and I'd forgotten to do something downstairs that would take only a moment to handle.  So I ran down here, flipped open one of my websites and saw something that engrossed my attention for a bit.  When I was done, I ran back upstairs.


As I hit the 10th tread, I smelled charcoal.  Yea, you know that sinking feeling .. you've been there.   So I turned the corner into the kitchen and grabbed the sauté pan with those forlorn bits of veggie matter.  And I did what cooks the world over do in such a situation ... wondered if it was still edible.  Stay with me ... I know you've done it.  So yea, I picked out the worst bits and put the rest in the rice.  And I ate it.  Not the flavor or texture I imagined at the start.  *wince*


Since I do the majority of the cooking, Bruce usually handles dishes.  He confessed the next morning that he'd thrown out the sauté pan because he couldn't get the burned bits off the bottom.  Oh.  My.  God.   It really was so horrible that the pan had to be thrown out.  And I ate it.


So .. appies at my place, anyone?  I have a new pan ..