Crunchy Taters!
Why is it that men can't seem to follow directions? I shouldn't generalize so much, there must be SOME guy out there who reads 'em, but my husband surely does not.
Saturday night my husband "catered" a dinner to another couple's house. He had actually auctioned off his services at a fundraiser a couple of months ago (full Irish dinner for 10) and, appropriately, the purchasers decided to cash in on St. Pat's. From the word go, this sounded scary to me. I mean, I love my husband's cooking but he tends to A)not follow directions and B)serve it chunky... It seems that somewhere along the way, my husband never really learned the defintion of "finely chopped" or "minced" or "mashed." And as far as following directions, he seems to skip to the end and ignore all the details.
He was up pretty late making dinner (I vowed NOT to help) and I could hear him banging around. Saturday morning I woke up to him yelling from the shower. "Come here! Come in here NOW!" - I was thinking he had some crazy mole or growth he wanted me to check out. I rush in and he says, "I forgot to turn off the crock pot last night - go check it please!!!" Good Lord. I ran downstairs to find the Guinness stew almost bone dry. I quickly added some beef broth and another can of Guinness and it was saved. At this point I start to dig through the fridge to see what else he's made. Corned beef looks okay (kinda hard to mess up boiling meat), spicy corn bread actually looks wonderful, shepherd's pie looks - uh oh - this does not look good. It is supposed to be topped with mashed potatoes, not scalloped potatoes. Why can't he just take the time to use the electric mixer? I take a bite and my worst fears are confirmed - the potatoes are not even fully cooked! They are crunchy! Jesus, Mary & Joseph! He is so impatient that he couldn't wait for the potatoes to boil? My dilemma sets in.
All day I wondered what to do. Should I scrape off the potatoes and start over? I was afraid he'd be able to tell and get upset with me. I decided to leave it and hoped the potatoes would soften when he cooked the dishes before the dinner. When he got home later that day(he was working on Saturday, of course), I made sure he realized the potatoes were hardly cooked and that he'd need to bake them for a LONG time before dinner. He cooked up a couple more dishes and started the dessert - Irish cookies - which incidentally we couldn't make because the dough needed to sit in the fridge OVERNIGHT before baking. Another brilliant example of NOT reading the directions. We loaded up the car and off we went.
Everything was great, the dinner was going well and there was more than enough food. The salvaged stew was a big hit (if they only knew) and the corned beef was amazing. Luckily, by the time the shepherd's pie came out, most people were too full to try it - Thank God, because even after baking each pie for over an hour those damn potatoes were still crunchy. Ugh. At the end of the night, the hostess tried to get us to take home some leftover shepherd's pie. I very kindly declined and I'm sure she very quickly pitched it after we walked out the door.
Saturday night my husband "catered" a dinner to another couple's house. He had actually auctioned off his services at a fundraiser a couple of months ago (full Irish dinner for 10) and, appropriately, the purchasers decided to cash in on St. Pat's. From the word go, this sounded scary to me. I mean, I love my husband's cooking but he tends to A)not follow directions and B)serve it chunky... It seems that somewhere along the way, my husband never really learned the defintion of "finely chopped" or "minced" or "mashed." And as far as following directions, he seems to skip to the end and ignore all the details.
He was up pretty late making dinner (I vowed NOT to help) and I could hear him banging around. Saturday morning I woke up to him yelling from the shower. "Come here! Come in here NOW!" - I was thinking he had some crazy mole or growth he wanted me to check out. I rush in and he says, "I forgot to turn off the crock pot last night - go check it please!!!" Good Lord. I ran downstairs to find the Guinness stew almost bone dry. I quickly added some beef broth and another can of Guinness and it was saved. At this point I start to dig through the fridge to see what else he's made. Corned beef looks okay (kinda hard to mess up boiling meat), spicy corn bread actually looks wonderful, shepherd's pie looks - uh oh - this does not look good. It is supposed to be topped with mashed potatoes, not scalloped potatoes. Why can't he just take the time to use the electric mixer? I take a bite and my worst fears are confirmed - the potatoes are not even fully cooked! They are crunchy! Jesus, Mary & Joseph! He is so impatient that he couldn't wait for the potatoes to boil? My dilemma sets in.
All day I wondered what to do. Should I scrape off the potatoes and start over? I was afraid he'd be able to tell and get upset with me. I decided to leave it and hoped the potatoes would soften when he cooked the dishes before the dinner. When he got home later that day(he was working on Saturday, of course), I made sure he realized the potatoes were hardly cooked and that he'd need to bake them for a LONG time before dinner. He cooked up a couple more dishes and started the dessert - Irish cookies - which incidentally we couldn't make because the dough needed to sit in the fridge OVERNIGHT before baking. Another brilliant example of NOT reading the directions. We loaded up the car and off we went.
Everything was great, the dinner was going well and there was more than enough food. The salvaged stew was a big hit (if they only knew) and the corned beef was amazing. Luckily, by the time the shepherd's pie came out, most people were too full to try it - Thank God, because even after baking each pie for over an hour those damn potatoes were still crunchy. Ugh. At the end of the night, the hostess tried to get us to take home some leftover shepherd's pie. I very kindly declined and I'm sure she very quickly pitched it after we walked out the door.
and who autioned off services to clean up after said dinner?
i'm guessing that was YOUR charitable donation.
Posted by
princess slea |
6:28 PM
He actually did all of the clean up (and then I cleaned up again because we have two distinctly different definitions of "clean"). Oh well, at least I have enough corned beef to make sandwiches for dinner all week. Yippee, no cooking.
Posted by
PreppyGirl |
7:28 PM