Yesterday started like every other. Up and at’em early, coffee, breakfast, swattin’ (flies that is). I got a lot done and I took a nap with the baby! The hubs took the boys over town on errands and the baby and I were gonna spend the afternoon cooking and cleaning–the usual.
It started out great. Baby in the booster having a snack, I was gonna make Salsa, Guac, Ribs were in the oven. I was trying a new bean dish and sweet corn was on the way home. I also planned to make some chips–real chips to deliver my homemade salsa.
I started collecting all my ingredients–Music fills the air and there is a song in my heart. I chop onion, garlic and I char peppers. I make a slurry in my blender when I make salsa. I put my cilantro, lime juice, garlic, jalapeno, salt and whirl it up. Well this is where it all went horribly wrong….
The baby was sticky–I put him in the bath I started my Mise en place (that just means choppin’ your stuff before you need it). Baby was chattering and I was moving back and forth and then I found…well he, how can I put this…He did his big business in the tub! I pluck him from the water and race him to the other tub for a scrub. I dry and diaper my monster baby and go to clean the nasty mess.
I am on bended knee with paper towels, bleach spray and a garbage bag and I smell burning…Monster baby turned the heat up on my onions and garlic that was on low. I pull the pan from heat, finish yucky job # 1, wash my hands and change my shirt and start over, new onion and garlic into my pan…I check temp on the oil for my chips…fire is off, Thanks Eli. I hear a crash and behind me is my precious child with a knocked over trash can and coffee grounds on the floor…coffee grounds–the evil that cannot be contained.
I get baby some toys, drop tortillas in the 345 oil, go back to start over my bean dish. Set up my draining station and make my cilantro-lime salt. Phone rings. I answer. Monster Baby (MB) opens the dishwasher and floods the kitchen and mudroom. Then he runs to the dryer, opens the door and drops clean towels into the wet floor. Sniff, sniff–garlic is burning again….
I start round # 3. I am running out of onion and bacon fat. Phone rings again and I let it go to voicemail. Frying chips continues and I decide one more batch of salsa slurry is in order. I drop my last onion chopped, some cilantro, (I call the hubs to bring more home, WalMart is out and all they have is “Organic” 10 stems for $1.38. Dang it–where is the inorganic, pesticide-laden cheap cilantro? I need it for 3 recipes). I drop the remaining salsa ingredients in the blender and push chop. Black smoke and burning smell once again fill the kitchen. The blender is on fire, melting, burning. I unplug and race it to the back porch. Baby-poops-alot has filled his pants again.
Fresh Pamper and another clean shirt and hand washing later…I go back to clean up the salsa trail on the kitchen floor. I must empty the trash can now because the stench is overwhelming. I am running out of hand soap, clean laundry and the will to survive.
Chips are done by this time and in the oven with the finished ribs to stay warm. Salsa and guac get finished and I am determined to make these beans! Wash these dishes by hand as to not draw attention to the working dish washer. MB is jabbering and swatting my legs with a fly swatter….
These smell good! Pinto beans I soaked overnight, Onions, garlic, Anaheim pepper, a few sweet peppers ’cause I have them coming out of my ears, Chicken stock I made with wing tips last week, Cayenne, and Espazote I searched all over Madison to find.
This is a take on a recipe I found one of my blog buddies posted Charro Beans, I love that they are not sweet but rather earthy, smoky, meaty.
The hubs returns with the 8 sprigs of cilantro, sniffs the kitchen and gives me a look. Yes, it smells like a forest fire in an out house on a garlic plantation with melted plastic and BBQ sauce on top–What’s your point?
He asks me if I went for a ride on the ATV…I shove the baby and a beverage in his arms and shoo them out the door. I have no idea what to do or what I have done.
I am quiet at the table–I have no finished product as I abandoned picture-taking hours before. I am not really hungry, but there is guacamole…The menfolk gnaw on the ribs and eat the fresh sweet corn and salsa. I sprinkle bacon on top of my impossible bean dish and the hubs and I take a bite–Cough, cough, cough. I forgot to add the espazote and must have added the Cayenne 9 times. I leave the table for a moment….
The Hubs clears the table and helps me with the dishes this night–I think he knows, I am a woman on the edge.
Will I try that recipe again? Yes. Soon? I am not sure–first I think I will look online and see if Yankee has a Xanax-scented jar ’cause there ain’t enough Calgon in the world for some days!
Sincerely, Sara
