Still no pictures.....

Dont get all excited - I still dont have any pictures...

I just wanted to tell you about my very ambitious dinner. Well it really wasnt all that difficult in itself - its just the events that surrounded it that taught me a few very important lessons

1) One little oven full of smoke will completely fill up a 2200 square foot home
2) The above event will set off every smoke alarm in the house
3)Little kids really dont like smoke alarms

4) and this is the big one - I will never attempt to cook a new recipe without Kevin home to help me with the kids

It all started with some serloins that I found in the freezer - then I remembered a 20 pound bag of potatoes (yep - 20 freeegin pounds) that we bought from costco that we needed to eat - so Steak and Potatoes right?? Well - Im not a grilling machine so I went to the internet for a serloin recipe that I could do in the oven - found Alton Brown's broiling method and thought - BROIL!?!?! HECK I CAN BROIL!!! I'll JUST PRESS THE BROIL BUTTON - IT WILL BE LIKE MAGIC!! So I set myself to marinate the steaks - all with a 2 year old watching my every move from his beloved steps that he backed up to the counters so he can see whatever is going on up there. After washing his hands about 15 times from touching the raw meat - the steaks were ready to just sit for a little while and get all flavor blasted from the marinade. On to the potatoes - I wanted to scallop potatoes for a nice little change so Noah (again) watched me cut the POH-TA-TOES and had to smell almost every slice and declare it smelling good enough to fling across the kitchen floor to be licked up by the dog. Which he thought was the funniest thing to watch a dog try and lick up a flat sticky piece of potato from a tile floor. It took about half of a potato for him to get bored of that and start sticking his fingers in the butter.

So I had to turn on the TV in order to save his life

The pototoes baked for about an hour - then I hit the magic BROIL button for the steaks - Altons recipe said to put a sheet of tinfoil down on the bottom rack of the oven to catch the drippings - then place the steaks directly on the rack above it - broil for 5 minutes on each side simple enough. done....

By the way - you ever try to re-roll tinfoil after someone (not mentioning any names but Im sure you can guess) decides to UNROLL the entire brand new box of reynolds wrap? Its not an easy thing to do and apparently time consuming....First of all - it was the length of my hallway! I was impressed!

Kevin walks in from work - we start to say hello but then his phone rings - business call - of course....Kevin paces when he is on the phone so he is doing laps around kitchen talking about webpage design....and Im starting to wonder why I smell smoke...

Thats when ELI woke up and decided that being held was the only thing on Gods green earth that would even come close to comforting him - so here I am...trying to sautee onions through what looks like smoke billowing out from my oven while holding a 5 month old.

I open my oven (yes I put Eli down and yes he immediately started screaming) and expect to see flames come shooting straight for my face - but it was just smoke.....lots of smoke...I wonder if this is normal so I just flip the steaks and keep on cookin

I Pick Eli back up since Im getting the look from Kevin - ya know, the "Im on the phone please do something with that screaming kid" look....

Hold whimpering Eli and stir stir stir the onions and then the smoke alarms go off - Eli about jumps out of my arms and pinches me so hard on my neck I swear I will have a bruise tomorrow and Noah is holding his hands over his ears and I think thats when he pottied in his pants - and Kevin is still trying to talk on the phone.....sigh....

Anyway - after we had every window and door open with every fan on high - FINALLY the smoke is not burning our eyes and Noah has stopped coughing - we sit down to eat dinner. It wasnt bad...but after all that hard work stupid sauteed onions were my favorite. Im gonna have to re-read that recipe to see of the billowing smoke is part of the show - the cooking experience to add just a hint of that missing charred flavor that only a GRILL can provide....

Noah threw most of his food to the dog and only wanted to cry about playing outside - Eli loved his applesauce but then spit it all up - twice - then decided it was bathtime immediately now or we would all perish a painful firey death. So after about 4 bites of my dinner I just gave up. Kevin offered me a swig of his beer but I was thinking more along the lines of a shot of something a bit stronger.

I took the boys to the bathtub and let them declare this evening a victory.

Crazy Kids - 1
Insane Mommy - 0