Never a dull moment

No hot water today. You wouldn't BELIEVE the amount of sand we've gotten out of our water heater. I spent some time last night mopping it up out of my tub, until Rob finally opted to drain the whole darn thing and flush it.

O'course that means we slept with the alarm off and the back door open, last night, with a hose running down to the street pouring out water.

In other news, the entire house smells like "barbecue sauce reduction". (The air return for the heating system is just outside the kitchen.)

Last night I dreamed of breaking into restaurants.

OK, time to shower. (Water Heater #2.) I hope #1 is back on line in time to do dishes, 'cause I have people coming over at sixish. Maybe I'll feed them barbecue corned beef! (Kidding.)

Corned beef brisket != beef brisket

It's kind of hard to clean a crock pot when you have no hot water. (Well, no hot water feeding the dishwasher or the kitchen sink. The upstairs bathroom has some. I have never been more glad that we have two completely separate water systems here.)

But I got it done.

I sniffed at the brisket, and y'know, I think I'm not a huge fan of corned beef either. Or else my brain isn't too sure how it would work with bbq sauce. (Darn that Safeway employee who pointed out this hunk o' meat. I was all set to go home without any.) I'll try it and see how it goes. Later.

I might have time to make rosemary chicken this afternoon.

I don't think I'm going to eat that

I'm too scared to try that beef thing.

I think if a restaurant served it to me I'd eat it, but I don't trust this. There could be a million things seriously wrong with it.

1) It could be not cooked through -- after all, it's PINK! Permanently pink! But it did crumble when I tried to grab the chunk with tongs. I had to get it out of the crock pot with two spatulas. I guessed it was done. But how will I ever know?

2) It is full of disgusting, revolting fat. There was a big layer on one side of the piece. It's... pretty slimy now, that layer. :-( Maybe I can pick that off. Or maybe I'll miss some and wind up with a mouthful of it.

3) Plus the obvious: I already expect it to taste bad, with the corned beef / bbq combo.

I suspect, honest to goodness, that this stuff is going to sit in my freezer until about 2007 and then I will pitch it.

I really hate to see myself do the same damn thing EVERY TIME I TRY ANYTHING in the kitchen. (Except baking.) I get adventurous, I do something... and then for one reason or another, usually just not trusting that it's now safe to eat the mess I have created, I pop it in the freezer hoping for courage to come later. Then a couple years down the road it's got freezer burn and I feel twinges of guilt and frustration and sadness when I throw it out.

People honestly wonder why I/others-like-me don't cook. It boggles my mind that anyone would wonder. (Okay, some of them "wonder" as a thin disguise over I'm-better-than-you. I'll certainly admit to seeing that. (One friend of mine readily admits that she thinks anyone who doesn't cook is lazy and financially irresponsible. You guys tell me how this brisket experiment was financially smart.)) But some folks aren't playing the ego game. They honestly don't know.

Okay, okay, I ate it... and it didn't suck

I grabbed the smallest chunk. I got two forks and a knife. I got rid of the obvious big fat layer. In some places it really wanted to separate just at the meat/fat boundary, which was very handy; in other places I sliced.

Then, based on klwalton's suggestion, I took the forks (sometimes one fork with the knife holding the chunk down) and combed it, just like I'd attack my hair as a child after some egregious bout of tomboyishness. Voila! Almost instantly it became the texture of taco filling. Well, okay, not quite that fine. But it definitely wanted to fall apart along the grain. I encouraged it.

I took the good thick sandwich roll I didn't have, toasted it in the toaster oven I don't have, and made a sandwich. (Okay, so it was lightly toasted white bread. Next time, a chunky roll.)

It didn't suck!

It was a bit heavy on the sauce. No shock there. The sauce was quite a bit saltier than I particularly wanted, in that kind of quantity. Oh well: all of THAT'S fixable. Less sauce in the next sandwich.

So I sliced the fat off the rest of the chunks, combed them too, and popped it all into the freezer for later. One's in a nice sandwich-sized serving.

P.S.: The cats reeeeeeeeally like little tidbits of this -- if I wipe the sauce off. :)

P.P.S.: The rosemary chicken is starting to smell gooooooood. :) Can I thicken the sauce still in the crock pot, or do I pull out the lemon/water/rosemary/pepper goo and put it in a little pot on the stove with some cornstarch or suchlike?