Kitchen Disaster

Subtitle – how a good day goes bad

Today started off on a very positive note. I got up and went to the gym. I didn’t get a chance to work out while I was up visiting Dad so I had taken a little break. It is interesting that sometimes I find that things are easier after I’ve taken a few days off. That was the case today. The hip drops and other things just felt a little easier today.

Superfan was there as well. His team actually won on Sunday and the player he hates had a decent game. And he was a little quiet today. Maybe he’s one of those guys who just enjoys complaining and can’t really enjoy it when his team wins. Or maybe since the player he’s been blaming all year had a good game, there was no reason to continue his ranting.

Then I got home and decided to work on dinner. Well let me back up a bit. I hate raw tomatoes. Something about the texture and the liquid insides which just don’t look finished. If I eat tomatoes, they must be processed. Walking around the farmer’s market the last couple of weeks, everyone has lots and lots of tomatoes. So I got the bright idea that maybe it would be fun to make some spaghetti sauce.

Found a nice Instant Pot recipe that was really easy. Rough chop some onion, garlic and a carrot or two. Saute them in some olive oil in the Instant Pot. Then add some rough chopped tomatoes some fresh basil and some other herbs along with salt and pepper. Pressure cook for 20 minutes and then do the slow release.

Opened up the pot and it actually smelled really great. The next step was to puree things to make it smooth. Got my immersion blender but the problem I was having is there wasn’t much liquid so the blender was throwing sauce out of the pot. There are just two of us so I didn’t need gallons of spaghetti sauce.

No problem, I’ve got this cylinder that came with the blender that is perfect for the job. Small base and high sides so I can get the entire blender in the liquid which reduces the amount being flung over the kitchen. Poured from the pot into this cylinder no problem. Then disaster struck.

Couldn’t really tell you what happened. One minute, I reaching for the cylinder to start blending the rest of the sauce. The next minute, I’ve dropped the cylinder and as it bounces on the floor, it sends sauce flying everywhere. Including the front of my shirt. Should probably point out that it was still a little warm at this point.

All that was left in the cylinder was about a quarter of a cup. Not enough to do anything with. It would have been epic. I was going to add some cream and some grated Parmesan and slow cook it for another couple of hours. Served over some spaghetti squash with some baby shrimp. Lots of potential in that dinner.

Instead, I’m tossing my shirt and short in the laundry and then wiping up sauce from the counter. Trust me, it gets everywhere. We had a box on the counter that was a casualty since you can’t get sauce out of cardboard. My wife had a bag of gummy candies on the counter. Fortunately, for her, they were individually wrapped so they could be rinsed off. The bag was a lost cause.

My wife was going out to check her company mail and get some coffee so I told her we needed spaghetti sauce. She asked me to come but I just couldn’t compound my defeat by picking out a jar of sauce from the store. Sigh.

This Saturday, if they still have tomatoes, I’m giving it another shot. Not going to let one kitchen disaster beat me!