Day of Disaster...Cooking tips 3 & 4

Today was a day of disaster for two reasons…

This morning as I was on my way to do a talk at the Senior Citizen’s club, I fell over. Not a big deal I hear you say, well it is a little bit embarrassing when you fall while talking to the lady who runs the falls prevention program at the hospital right after you have just had a little slip and recovered you balance and then said something along the lines of ‘My shoes are a little slippery, but they are ok, I think that once I actually fall on my bottom I will have to invest in some new ones’ and then down you go. Yep that’s embarrassing.

The other reason was this:

Tomorrow at work we are having a farewell afternoon tea and everyone else has been telling me what they are going to cook for the event…so feeling a little bit of peer pressure I decided that I would try my hand at making a baked slice to take…a passion fruit and lemon delicious slice. But let me just make one thing very very very clear….just because I am a dietitian, doesn’t mean I can cook and after tonight’s episode I don’t think I should ever try again. Why I hear you ask…well read on.

After work I headed to the supermarket brought all the ingredients I would need and headed home. After I finished my own tea I started the cooking process…I went to preheat my oven and discovered my problem number one, my oven is in Fahrenheit…I should have given up there and then, but no I went and converted the temperature and attempted to keep going. I weighed out all my ingredients which took a lot longer than I would have liked as I had brought 5times the amount of butter I needed and couldn’t work out why things seemed out of proportion. Once they were finally right I went to put them into a bowl…problem number 2 I don’t own mixing bowls… but determined to succeed I put the ingredients into a saucepan and looked at the next step on the recipe…cream the butter. No dramas, electric mixers I did have thanks to mum and dad who had brought a pair while Dad was living in china so I plugged them in and went to mix only to find problem 3, they didn’t work. After playing with them for a little while I finally got them working, but then as put them into the saucepan to mix the ingredients they blew up. Now I understand how ridiculous this all sounds, but it is all true, most people would have counted their losses by this stage but not me, I was not going to let this slice beat me. So I sat down, in tears and began to cream the butter by hand…in my saucepan. Once the butter was finally creamed I decided I should just check my stupid Fahrenheit oven before I combined the rest of the ingredients, this was a good idea and a bad idea because when I checked it…it had turned itself off. So I pushed some buttons check plugs but couldn’t get it to turn back on again, so I had to change out of my PJs and go next store to ask my land lord how it worked. He came over, had a look at it and said ‘I have no idea, I’ve never used it’ but he pushed some more buttons anyway and it came back on. I don’t know why, but it made me feel a bit stupid that a man, who had no idea fixed it. So with the oven back on and all my ingredients combined and ready to go I put it in the oven and let it cook. Once it was done and cooled a little I put it in the fridge ready for tomorrow.

I have no idea what it will taste like…some bits look a little burnt and other bits way to soggy, but I tried and if all else fails in the morning…I will got to the IGA in the morning and buy something. But it has given me this...cooking tips with Emma number 3 and 4

TIP 3: Read the signs...if the oven is in Fahrenheit and the mixers blow up...give up, it's not worth the stress.

TIP 4: Make sure you always have a mixing bowl. Saucepans are not as good a swap as they appear.

I guess that's just all part of the adventure!