Just Keep Cooking

So, the other night I experienced a new Low in cooking. While cooking brats on my grill, I somehow managed to set them all on fire. I mean REALLY on fire. Like, I took them off the grill with my tongs and put them on a plate and there were still flames coming out of them on the plate. This is a first for me. 

The experience can now join my Hall of Flame cooking disasters. Like the time I put on a pot of frozen green beans, covered them with water, put them on to boil, and then forgot them long enough that all the water evaporated and the green beans burned to the bottom of the pot. I was pretty impressed with that one. 

Or the time my husband bought me a very expensive pot with a steamer insert option. I filled up the steamer bowl with broccoli, turned on the stove, and waited. And waited and waited. I kept cracking the lid to check on the broccoli and it remained unchangingly raw. Then I started hearing weird sounds from the pot. My husband came in the kitchen to talk to me while I was cooking and I mentioned that I couldn’t figure out why on earth this broccoli was taking so long to cook. He lifted the lid, looked inside, then asked, Did you put any water in the pot? …….Ummm. No. I think I forgot that step. 

That little “oops” damaged the bottom of my pot to the point that it was unusable. 

I’ve had a couple times when flames have erupted from my stove top due to me accidentally leaving a dishtowel on the burner. 

I’ve had multiple times where I have put a pot of food on the stove to cook and come back much later and realized I never turned the burner on. 

I’ve baked double batches of muffins only to realize, when I taste them, that I forgot some important ingredient like salt or sugar. 

I exploded potatoes in my oven once. 

One time I baked a casserole in the oven in a glass casserole dish. When it was done I took it out of the oven, placed it on the stove top, and let it sit for a couple minutes to cool. Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized that one of the stove burners was on. The glass dish heated up and then exploded all over the kitchen. I think we ended up going out to eat that night. 

Most of my cooking problems are related to the fact that I am very absent-minded and also constantly being distracted by a houseful of children. 

Here’s the thing. I haven’t stopped cooking. I don’t have any intentions to stop cooking. Every day, I get up and make sure the family is fed three times a day. Little mistakes and really BIG mistakes have not stopped me from trying once again. 

Now, if I could somehow get that same tenacity for other areas in my life. Areas like rocky relationships, health goals, self-discipline goals.

 I’ve been feeling a bit discouraged the last couple days, just feeling like I have failed to accomplish my goals so many times, maybe I should just give up. But really, I just need to adopt the “cooking mistakes” approach. You mess up, you apologize to whoever is affected by the mistake, you clean up the mess, you keep cooking.