Substitutions

I've boasted before about how I'm not a very good cook. I don't follow directions to a tee and if I don't have the main ingredient, I substitute. I'm the girl who put cinnamon in lima beans for flavor. Hey, I was 10 or 11 - I didn't know any better. Anyway, the other night I decided to go all fancy-fied on the fam-damily and I made something with a fancy name - baked cod thermidore. Doesn't that sound fancy?

Doesn't that look fancy? Well, mine looked nothing like it. The fish I used wasn't cod (of course) and the fillets were bigger and a little firmer so they didn't roll up very prettily. They tasted good - just looked yucky. Now, one reason I picked something with thermidore sauce was because that's such a fancy name for sauce. Turns out it's just butter, flower, cheese and juices from the cooked fish and I think a little wine. But I didn't have wine. All I had was some spiked tea stuff so I added that. It was pretty dang good! Also it called for cheddar cheese and all I had was extra sharp cheddar but again, I thought it tasted pretty good.

I also made Au-gratin potatoes which were killer good. They looked like a burned mess but they tasted great. So all in all, everything was good, but it looked a hot mess. The family wasn't too impressed but then again, Mr. Wonderful eats Dinty Moore beef stew and thinks it's good so I'm not going by his palate.

No, there weren't any fires thankfully but pictures like this could be very typical of my cooking prowess/luck. Although, I did try to thaw a package of meat in the microwave and didn't realize that there were 2 rather hefty metal clamps on each end of the tube and it made the microwave hum really loudly and I saw some cool sparks.

I know I've used some of these pictures before (thanks, Google images) but they're just so appropriate, I couldn't resist.

I'll keep updating about the funny/stupid stuff I ruin in my kitchen because, well, it's funny. Speaking of funny, the picture of the gooey hands came from a very funny story about disasters. Here's the link - you should check it out...
http://www.affairsofliving.com/imported-20100106014405/2010/2/10/kitchen-disasters-a-pictorial-tribute.html?lastPage=true&postSubmitted=true

Have fun laughing at me and I'll keep providing material because I'm sure that my thermidore disaster won't be the last.

Bon appetit!