Macaroni and FAIL

Every now and again I get a little big for my britches. Okay, maybe it's more than every now and again. Pride seems to be my favorite sin, and it sets me up for some embarrassing failures. The good thing about embarrassing failure is that it's usually pretty entertaining for the bystander. Anything for a laugh, right? This is a story of one such failure.

I have no training in the kitchen. I'm just a housewife with a hobby. After a few successes though, I wander into the delusion that I'm the next Julia Child. A few weeks ago I was talking with a friend about macaroni and cheese. We had started some for lunch and I was going on about how much better it is if you make the box stuff with half a stick of butter rather than the two tablespoons of margarine the box calls for. (By the way, I can't think of anything off the top of my head that's better with margarine than with butter, even if the recipe calls for margarine. Just a preference of mine) When the pasta was draining in the sink I melted the butter in the hot pan. At this point I got distracted by my own apparent genius started "instructing" my poor friend on proper pasta cooking or some other babbling. I don't remember exactly what. The butter got VERY hot. I then made a discovery: if you deep fry the cheese powder, it turns into crunchy salty little cheese bits that are apparently insoluble in milk. I screwed up a box of macaroni and cheese! I didn't even know you could do that. Some gourmet I am. My friend was very gracious and ate the strange burnt concoction, but hasn't quit busting me about it yet.

So there it is. I can improvise a bain-marie but I can't make mac-n-cheese. I wasted a perfectly good stick of butter too. Oh, well. Next time I'll just make sandwiches.

I'm Baaa-aaack

The title has nothing to do with the actual content of this post. Whatever. I feel better now after having a big 'ol tumor removed.

On to the meat (har har):

I made the discovery this week that leftover tater tots make DELICIOUS nachos. It was my first post-surgery excursion into the world of compulsive late night cooking. It was about 9:30, and the tater tots from dinner were still sitting on the counter. Gross, I know. Maybe it was inspiration, maybe it was the very tasty rum I enjoyed with my friend D that night. I don't know. For whatever reason, I felt compelled to get up mid-movie and put on some bacon (the foodie equivalent of "put on some tea") and smother the leftovers in colby-jack. Once the bacon was done I threw some onions in the grease and carmelized 'em. Twenty minutes or so in the oven for the tots, plus some sour cream, and my slightly tipsy heart was satisfied. I should have added jalepenos or salsa, but it just didn't occur to me at the time. YUM! Even though the cheese was a little old (What? Don't judge me! I haven't been to the store in forever...) it was tasty. Crumble up the bacon on the cheesy tots and cover them in sweet onion and sour cream goodness. It looks like a heart attack. I look forward to trying it again when I think it through a little more.

Quick aside: I have not been ignoring you, dear blog. I still love you. I just had to have a "sorta cancer but not really cancer" tumor removed from my abdomen, and the narcotics I was on really made it impossible to type whole words, much less form an entire blog post. I know that sounds like the excuse of someone trying to obtain fraudulent medical leave. It's not. I have a ten inch scar that looks JUST LIKE a rattlesnake that ate a deer. That proves it.