Kitchen shenanigans

Last night I was home alone. And things were happening. In my kitchen of all places. Things like two pans of vegetables roasting in the oven and a pot of potatoes boiling on the stove. And the smoke detector, with its weird mix of urgency and apathy, alternating between ear-piercing beeping and a deadpan voice saying "fire." Pigs were flying and Hell was freezing over, because I was cooking.

Pete was out of town so I had picked up our CSA share for the week. So then I had all these vegetables and I decided I should probably do something with at least some of them. But I don't like cooking. It's messy. And it's a lot of effort for something I couldn't care less about. Let's be honest, I have the taste buds of a 5 year old. I'd be perfectly content to eat cereal or peanut butter and banana sandwiches for every meal. Plus I think food just tastes better when someone else makes it while I'm in the shower after a run. Which is what usually happens on Tuesday nights when Pete is here. Because he is awesome like that.

But I had gone to 5am Fit1 Tuesday morning and I was running Monday and Wednesday mornings this week instead of Tuesday and Thursday nights, so Tuesday night it was just me vs. the vegetables. I put the cabbage far, far away. Because cabbage is gross and smelly and I just cannot even. But broccoli, carrots and tomatoes, that I can do. So I cut them up, tossed them with olive oil and salt, and roasted them in the oven. Then I decided to make smashed potatoes, which is the lazy way of making mashed potatoes. Some people get all fancy with their mixers and their peeling of the potatoes. But I don't have time for that. Also, I don't have a mixer or a peeler. Plus I think there are a lot of nutrients in potato skins. So yeah, let's go with that. I'm doing it for the nutrients, not because I don't feel like peeling things. Science! So I boiled the potatoes. (Let's skip over the part where I put too much water in the pot and then it was spilling out when I put the potatoes in so I had to dump some of it in the sink). And then mashed them with a masher. And then I thought I should probably add some liquid or something. I didn't have any milk, but I did have sour cream for some reason, probably something burrito related. So I used that instead. It was a good choice.

The fire alarm went off somewhere in the middle of all this, though I don't know why because nothing was on fire. I know, surprising isn't it? And I was all like, look at me, cooking AND testing the smoke detectors to make sure they work. I'm really winning at domesticity tonight! Whoa, slow down. Let's not make this a habit or anything. Undomesticated 4 Eva!

So I cooked vegetables and they were good and nothing burned down. Great success. But then there were all these dishes, which I had to clean before I could eat. Because I can't stand dishes just lying around being all dirty up in my space. By then it was already 6pm and that seemed like a lot more effort than cereal. So I ate the vegetables, then decided to reward myself for a job well done by going to get frozen yogurt.

Lessons learned:

*Roasted tomatoes and broccoli are yummy.
*Smashing potatoes is fun.
*Cooking is the hard way of getting food into your mouth. Outsource this as much as possible.
*Smoke detectors are too sensitive and really bring down the party.

Lyric of the moment: "I wanna taste love and pain, wanna feel pride and shame. I don't wanna take my time, don't wanna waste one line. I wanna live better days. Never look back and say, could have been me it could have been me..." ~The Struts "Could have been me"