Culinary disasters

I'm just about ready to give up on cooking. Much as I love it, I'm coming to the conclusion that I've just lost the knack.

What set me off on this line of thought?

It began on Monday. We had Durham cutlets - triangular shaped rissoles using up some left over roast beef from the freezer. I diced the meat rather than minced it, added all the other ingredients, coated them in breadcrumbs & duly fried them up in the evening. Talk about tough! We chewed & chewed. It didn't help that is was pretty tasteless too. The Fox abandoned his cutlet before the end. He'd just had enough of chewing for so little reward.

Now this is a recipe I have done many times before & we've enjoyed it. The beef, a piece of roast topside, was very dense. I was aware of that as I diced it. I'm now left wondering what I'm going to do with the other bit of the same joint that's still sitting in the freezer. Dare I risk mincing it before re-heating it? Or would it be better to put it in plenty of sauce to soften, & hopefully moisten it, it a bit? A curry perhaps. At present I'm tempted to just bin it, but that seems an awful waste & I abhor waste.

I was really put out by this disaster & felt totally disillusioned. Nonetheless I agreed I'd cook again yesterday, just some frozen pies. I preheated the oven as instructed, popped the pies in & got on with the accompanying vegetables. After 10 minutes of the recommended 30-35 mins cooking time, at a lower temperature than stated on the packet so allowing for the extra heat of a fan oven, I was struck by a rather acrid smell. I went over to the oven. I sniffed at the vents, looked through the door window & hastily opened the door. The pastry lids were black. I turned the oven down, left the door open a while to speed up the cooling down process. The rest of the cooking time was spent diving to & from the oven opening the door, letting out the smoke.

It didn't help that the content of the pies was chicken, not something I wanted to serve not properly cooked. I feared the pastry might be burnt but the contents raw. At the end of the cooking time, when the veg was ready, I nervously took the pies out to serve, cut one in half & inspected the chicken. It looked cooked. I served up. Needless to say we both cut the black top of the lid off. 

I'm not entirely sure now how safe a meal it was. My tum's been upset all night & even now doesn't feel entirely settled. I'll be writing an e-mail of complaint to that company. There's something drastically wrong with their cooking instructions. I'm confident our oven is working normally. I've certainly not had any other problems.

So it is with some relief that I write the Fox is cooking today. He's getting the wok out to do a chicken in black bean sauce stir-fry. Then tomorrow we're eating out. The Fox has a hospital appointment at 4.45pm in Lancaster. By the time we're out of there we reckon all we'll want to do is eat, not start to cook.

I'll see if I can raise the courage to cook again come Friday. Maybe it's time I had a break. Maybe this holiday on the Rhine later this month is just what I need - a good battery recharge & hopefully regain my cooking skills.