Shambles

Lateish posting tonight, when secretly my bed is calling. I’ve just finished cleaning up the kitchen after one of those shambolic cooking episodes that makes me question my survival to an adult age/decision to cook anything more challenging than toast. I decided to use some leftover bits and pieces from a dinner party last week to cook up a mini-feast of steamed buns, pan-fried gyoza and steamed veges. Quick, easy and tasty weeknight dinner.

Let’s see, first I burnt my thumb on the frypan and in the reflex flinch I knocked the cutting board off the bench, tumbling the knife onto the floor and indulging in that ridiculous I-hope-the-sharp-knife-doesn’t-drive-through-my-foot dance, and splashing soy sauce onto my favourite pink tshirt. That was before my guests even arrived.

After that, although technically I was in the kitchen slaving over a hot stove while my guests lolled about in the loungeroom drinking beer and using the net (“oh, have you been shaped? Damn!”), I got distracted by an argument about water and farmers and the free market… and the gyoza stuck to the bottom of the frying pan.

Then I was paying too much attention to unsticking/saving the gyoza. Meanwhile the water for steaming things merrily boiled away to nothing. It took me a while to work out that the strange smell was the bottom-most bamboo steamer starting to smoulder from the radiant heat from the saucepan underneath that had once held water and now was slowly turning black with exciting glowing red bits. By that time I’d invented the little known delicacy, roasted-from-below steamed bun. Fluffy on one side, toasty on the other!

So dinner ended up with the bottom half (the best part!) of the gyoza wrappers being sacrificed to the gods of the pan, the filling and top half becoming part of an all-in stir-fry, and a side dish of crispy-bottomed steamed buns. There’s a big pile of things with bits stuck to them soaking in the sink. I find that an overnight soak can work wonders in these situations. Possibly because when I’ve just totally arsed up a meal the last thing I can be bothered doing is trying to remove half of it from the bottom of the pan.

My gorgeous KP (the other one) is back in the country after an extended time gadding about overseas. In an email today to let me know she was safe and sound, she said, “I’ll have to check your blog to see what you’ve been up to.”

Come round for dinner kiddo. Make sure you eat first though.