(no subject)
*stares tentatively at oven*
I'm going out to a bi-monthly gathering with a group of friends this afternoon, otherwise known as "Five Women, Five Cats, Three Dogs, Lots of Wine and One Very Scared Man: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" and as is usual for this gathering we're all bringing a homemade dish. Every time I swear up and down I'm going to gather my ingredients lovingly several days in advance, carefully read through recipies and then, the day before, just in case something goes wrong, I'll make the dish. I should stop kidding myself at some point for lo, it is one and a half hours prior to the event and I have just shoved my hastily made quiche in the oven.
It shouldn't surprise me that it's come to this. I can cook passably, as long as I'm not doing anything too complex or new. Then my cooking method seems to involve several key steps:
1. Panic and hope I have all the ingredients.
2. Panic and hope I have all the utensils. Invariably, I wind up doing creative things with a spoon which probably shouldn't be talked about.
3. Slosh ingredients together in haphazard approximation of recipe. Duck any minor explosions.
4. Realise after the ... creation is in the oven that I've forgotten some critical ingredient. The last time this happened it was the eggs (... then the baking soda) in a cake.
5. Breathe huge sigh of relief when concoction turns out to be quite edible, akshually, as it usually does.
I sort of followed the recipe for this quiche, if you squint. I'm not confident making bases and I would really rather not do it without a processor anyway. So the plan was to find one of those pre-made bases at the supermarket and shove everything into that, only I had enormous trouble finding one. They may have been there but the Asian shelf stacker I asked didn't seem too clear on the difference between puff pastry and a base, and when I mentioned the word quiche she looked at me as though I had just asked her to dance naked on the back of a pink elephant. Thank God for little old ladies - one came past as we were having this discussion and said it would be perfectly okay to use the non-puff, butter pastry with a quiche. I don't think I've forgotten anything either.
Oh well. If it doesn't work out I'm only killing a few good friends. Maybe the alcohol in their systems will help?