Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Why I'll Never Be Trying A New Recipe Again. Ever!

Do you ever get sick of having the same meals over and over again?

I do. And I really can't complain to the cook because I am the cook. I guess it all comes down to not being creative enough and organised enough and not caring enough at the end of a long day to find something tasty, nutritious and not too time-consuming to make.

Tuesday morning I got chicken thigh fillets out of the freezer to make one of the four recipes in my head for chicken thigh fillets. Didn't know which one it was at that moment but it didn't really matter. I'd make that decision later on. A couple of times during the day I'd think about it then defer the decision because I just couldn't get excited about any of the options.

I was still vacillating at 5:00 pm and that's not good because that's when I actually have to start making dinner. But then it came to me. Inspiration. A flash of genius. I'd try something new. Maybe chicken and broccoli. Google came to the rescue with many, many, many different versions but luckily I had the ingredients to the first one on the list so I printed it out and I was set.


It wasn't a complicated recipe. Thank goodness because complicated can make me take short-cuts and the end result won't ever resemble the picture I was trying to emulate. It was basically making a marinade for the chicken, chopping up the broccoli and stir-frying it then frying up the chicken with the sauce ingredients and you've got a delicious dish. Hopefully.

But - yes, there had to be a but - there was a point where the recipe gave the option of adding chilli flakes. I do like a little heat in Asian dishes so I took that option but could only find chilli powder in my pantry. Flakes, powder - same-same. Except it's really not. Flakes don't become air-borne quite so easily as powder does. I made the monumental error of breathing just as I pulled the chill-filled spoon out of the bag.

The reaction was instantaneous. I sneezed. Then sneezed again. Then again and again and again and again. Giant, body-shaking sneezes.

Just as a small aside here - I have had three babies. It was a long time ago now but three babies does have a life-time impact on a woman's body. Let's just say that things don't quite work as well as they used to and one of my sphincters has a three-sneeze limit. I sneezed at least 10 times. Do the maths and reach your own conclusions. I'm sure you've got the gist.

Sneezing also usually makes stuff come out of my nose. Whether or not I've got a cold. It kind of felt like there might be something so I put my finger up to check.. No I didn't think of getting a tissue - it was a pretty instinctive reaction and it was an instinct that I should have repressed. I had chilli powder on that particular finger and I can tell you, from experience now, that chill powder + nasal mucosa = pain!

It did settle down quickly. Once I'd washed my hands and my nostril. And I managed to continue to cook during the entire ordeal. Because having three kids means that I've been trained to ignore distractions to get the job done. But this cooking adventure had one more sting in its tail.

The recipe also suggested sesame seeds to be a nice addition. I like sesame seeds and it just so happened that Luke and Becky had made something the other day with them and had put the leftovers in a container in the pantry. Toasted sesame seeds on the top of the chicken and broccoli would be delicious.

So I went to pull out the container. Only to find that the lid hadn't been put on properly. Seeds went everywhere! On the floor. Through the spice rack. On the shelf above and the two shelves below.

There may have been a couple of naughty words said. Loudly. With vehemence. And I may have left the mess on the floor in the hope that the dogs would clean it up once they'd got back from their walk. Turns out that dogs aren't particularly fond of sesame seeds but I have a good husband who recognises when his wife has come to the end of her tether.

I swore then and there that I'd never try another new recipe.

I finally got it dished out. And we sat down to eat and it was delicious! So, so, so good. I'll definitely be adding this one to my short list of recipes on rotation. But with chilli flakes - that powder is going in the bin!

10 comments:

  1. Ouch! I got a chilli seed caught up my nose once. Don't ask :)

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  2. I laughed all the way through your post. This is exactly how I roll.............& how things roll me LOL! Glad the dish wash good though!!!

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  3. LOL! And I can totally relate to what pushing out three baby boys does to one's internal plumbing system... I'll be sure to be careful with chilli powder!

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  4. Just two words: "moisture management"

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  5. Just seen your PB's and I think it's time you ran a couple more parkruns and broke 22:00... (because you can!)

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  6. LOL and here I thought by the title the recipe failed :)

    But this could have happened to me so easily, I'm often a bit clumsy :)

    The dish looks delicious by the way.

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  7. Spilled sesame seeds would be almost as bad as spilled sugar. My husband took his contacts out once after cutting up chili. Silly man. The dish looks very healthy and scrumptious. I do cook the same thing over and over but I think now I'm living somewhere new I'll be a bit more adventurous :)

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  8. Haha, you made me laugh with the sphincter sneeze limit! :-)And yes, it is hard to vary what you eat, especially when you have some food restrictions (like I do)... but on the other hand, it does make it easier to stay healthy. Vegetables are the only food group I have no restriction on! Nice post.

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  9. I can relate. I have a problem with a certain brand of soy sauce. Twice now I have picked the bottle up by the lid and the bottle has fallen out from under the lid and spilled all over the pantry floor and across the kitchen. My daughter has done it too and felt terrible until I told I've done it myself. And soy sauce SMELLS. Too salty even if the pets would touch it. I'm still getting soy sauce stains off everything. And I've finally remembered never to buy that brand again.

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