Today's theme at HeartSongs is Cooking Disasters. 

I have no idea what to write about.  I discovered a few years ago that I am a better baker than a cook.  I can make wonderful desserts and dips for fruit.  Give me a complicated dessert recipe and I'll make it perfectly.  It will look just like the picture, unless it has decorations on it.  Writing on cakes with frosting, not my thing.  I'm awful at it and just won't do it.  I have also perfected cooking desserts without eggs.  Half of my family is allergic to eggs so I'm always looking for ways to make things taste good and come out right without the egg factor.

Cooking used to be a daily disaster for me.  It took me years to coordinate the whole meal so that everything was ready at the same time.  I used to cook the pasta too soon so it was cold when the rest of the meal was ready.  The meat would only be half way cooked when the veggies were done so we either had cold veggies or over-cooked veggies.

One cooking debacle that sticks out in my mind is just a couple of short years ago.  Ethan was in Special Olympics at the time and I was pregnant with Harley.  I had called in sick one day because I had spent most of the night worshiping the porcelain goddess and felt like I had a horrible hangover without the partying of the night before.   By the time Ethan's practice rolled around I felt better and had kept a little food down.  My mom was nice and took Ethan to practice for me if I would make dinner for her. 

I decided to bake the chicken she had pulled out of the freezer that morning.  I mixed up some ingredients to coat the chicken and when it was all coated popped it in the oven.  It wasn't too long after that when I became queasy again.  I decided I would set the timer and lay down on the couch for a while. 

Scott was playing on the computer and said he would start the veggies for me soon.  Well, he forgot and Emma turned off the timer for the chicken but didn't tell myself or Scott it had gone off.  Scott startled me awake when he realized how smoky the house was.  I ran into the kitchen to black, billowing smoke rolling out of the oven.  The smell was horrible and it was hard for me to walk to the oven to open it. 

When I did throw the door open I was greated with more smoke and FLAMES.  I don't know why the chicken caught on fire but the suckers were flaming hot.  Emma was running around in circles screaming FIRE at the top of her lungs, granny was standing in the door way of the kitchen confused about what was going on, and Scott was hunting for the baking soda to throw it on my ruined dinner. 

As the last of the flames were going out mom and Ethan walked into the house.  Ethan's first words were aimed at me "you made my house stink".  Mom just laughed and picked up the phone to order pizza. 

By the time the pizza got there it was way past bedtime for the kids and Scott had joined Emma and they were both running circles in the kitchen, still screaming FIRE at the top of their lungs.  I was back on the couch, in tears because dinner was ruined, Ethan was mad because the house smelled (he really didn't care that his favorite meal of chicken was ruined), and I was pregnant and the puking had started again because of the smell of charred chicken. 

I pretty much refused to cook again until after Harley was born.