The greatest danger to me is me
Dec. 16th, 2023 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqI was left to my own devices for dinner tonight, but since I had a fairly late lunch of leftover beef stew, I was not exceptionally hungry. I tend to be more ambitious about cooking when I am hungry, so I spent some time out in the kitchen considering and rejecting ideas until I decided to have bacon and eggs. That seemed like a fairly quick, unchallenging dinner.
As soon as I got the bacon out of the fridge and grabbed the knife to pare off a couple of slices, I was struck by another idea and took off at a ninety-degree tangent. I sliced off a ½ inch slab of bacon and then cut that down into cubes I tossed that into a mid-sized stainless steel pot to render and roughly chopped an onion while it did its thing. My plan was to dump in a can of baked beans and supplement it with a bit of molasses, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco.
Then my brain went completely off the rails.
I mean - why use Tabasco when I have some perfectly good Carolina Reapers in the freeze? When I harvested some of them from the garden this year, I prepared them by mincing them really fine, rolling them up into a long tube and putting them in the freezer. The idea was that when I wanted to give something a little kick, I could pull out the pepper stick, cut a bit off the end and stir it into whatever I was making. I unwrapped the frozen stick of pain, scraped a gram or two off the end and put it back for the next time I went insane.
My first clue that I'd made a potential error in judgement was when I dumped the onions and minced pepper in with the bacon. I stood back from the pot, stirring it from as far away as I could reach, coughing on the fumes coming out of it and wondering what chain of decisions led me to that point. But I pressed on. I cooked the onions down until they were slightly soft and then dumped in a can of beans. That reduced the fume output. A bit. Not entirely. I added a dollop of molasses and a good splash of Worcestershire sauce and suffered over the evil concoction until it was heated through.
I glopped half of it into a bowl and then stirred in a couple teaspoons of sour cream in an effort to tame it a bit.
It had bite, but it was far from inedible. In fact, I daresay it was delicious. I'll probably eat the other half of it for lunch tomorrow.
Two lessons I learned from cooking with these minced Reapers; next time wear a mask when cooking with them, and wear a glove when handling them.
As soon as I got the bacon out of the fridge and grabbed the knife to pare off a couple of slices, I was struck by another idea and took off at a ninety-degree tangent. I sliced off a ½ inch slab of bacon and then cut that down into cubes I tossed that into a mid-sized stainless steel pot to render and roughly chopped an onion while it did its thing. My plan was to dump in a can of baked beans and supplement it with a bit of molasses, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco.
Then my brain went completely off the rails.
I mean - why use Tabasco when I have some perfectly good Carolina Reapers in the freeze? When I harvested some of them from the garden this year, I prepared them by mincing them really fine, rolling them up into a long tube and putting them in the freezer. The idea was that when I wanted to give something a little kick, I could pull out the pepper stick, cut a bit off the end and stir it into whatever I was making. I unwrapped the frozen stick of pain, scraped a gram or two off the end and put it back for the next time I went insane.
My first clue that I'd made a potential error in judgement was when I dumped the onions and minced pepper in with the bacon. I stood back from the pot, stirring it from as far away as I could reach, coughing on the fumes coming out of it and wondering what chain of decisions led me to that point. But I pressed on. I cooked the onions down until they were slightly soft and then dumped in a can of beans. That reduced the fume output. A bit. Not entirely. I added a dollop of molasses and a good splash of Worcestershire sauce and suffered over the evil concoction until it was heated through.
I glopped half of it into a bowl and then stirred in a couple teaspoons of sour cream in an effort to tame it a bit.
It had bite, but it was far from inedible. In fact, I daresay it was delicious. I'll probably eat the other half of it for lunch tomorrow.
Two lessons I learned from cooking with these minced Reapers; next time wear a mask when cooking with them, and wear a glove when handling them.
