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Sunday dinner

We are a vegetarian household and thanks to the wonderful array of veggie substitutes available these days (I remember when it was all nut cutlets and spinach) we can enjoy the delights of a Sunday dinner. Sort of...

I decided to cook one of those "proper" Sunday dinner's a la vegetarian. Bear in mind that as soon as I string a sentence together that includes the words "I'll" and "cook", you know there is going to be trouble.

I had it all organized. Now, if you are a good cook, I should hide behind your apron at this point as you are not going to want to read this.

After a mission into the freezer, moving aside a couple of renegade Brussel sprouts, several empty boxes so iced up you couldn't make out what had once been in them and half a dozen (empty) Tupperware™ freezer containers (yes, hands up - how many of you have a freezer full of empty Tupperware™ freezer containers?) I struck gold!

A box of vegetable pies, 3 frozen yorkshire puddings and a bag of green beans. Excellent. Now for the cupboards.

Again, rifling behind the obligatory bottles of half-used food coloring, tins of baked beans and a packet of weird wafer biscuits which nobody is going to eat (but they were on offer) I located a packet of stuffing mix, some vegetable gravy granules and a tin of instant mashed potato.

Now I was in control.

Pies & stuffing to oven > 20 minutes > time for a coffee > pies & stuffing out of oven > yorkshire puddings in oven for 3 minutes whilst meantime make potato, gravy and steam green beans in microwave. Easy.

Yeah right.

After 15 minutes my daughter came wandering into the computer room (yes, yes, I left the kitchen and went straight back to cyberland) and asked if I was burning anything. Note: my children do not ask what I am cooking, they ask what I am burning.

Puzzled, knowing that even I could not burn something by leaving it in the oven for not long enough, I went to investigate. Everything seemed to be in order but, just to double check, I opened the oven.

WHOOSH! Big plumes of black smoke came pouring out of the oven door and in its blackened depths I could just make out three charcoal pies. A little tip here, check when the oven is supposed to be set at 200 that it is set at 200 and not "phasers on kill". I freaked out and went for the spatula to assist me in retrieving the remains. Couldn't find it anywhere, then I remembered I had put it in the dishwasher. I opened the dishwasher.

WHOOSH! An enormous and malevolent jet of hot, greasy dishwater shot out of the dishwasher and soaked me from head to foot. Another little tip here for you folks. Don't open the dishwasher whilst it is still washing...

I belted the off switch, grabbed my spatula and had at the oven, all the while reminding the children to "Stay out of the kitchen" because of the wet floor. Although at that point, I don't know which was more dangerous. The slippery floor or the prospect of eating whatever it was I had just cremated.

A little hot pie juggling routine and baking tray frisbee later and I had things ticking over again. I'd turned the oven down, popped the Yorkshire puddings in, opened all the windows to get rid of most of the smoke and started in on the green beans, gravy and potato.

Here's another tip. Never try and boil water in a microwave in a jug that is not designed for the microwave cooking. The results are not good. I decided to enlist the children. My daughter mixed what there was left of the boiled water with the potato lumps (I don't think there was any melted plastic left in it). My son was no help at all, however, managing only to prop up the kitchen wall, watching me run around like the headless chicken (that would normally have been in the oven, had we not been veggies) laughing his head off, unable to stand unsupported so wracked was he with mirth.

Then I remembered the microwave, I hadn't steamed the beans! I got so involved with them that things reached a critical point which I arrived at nicely by exclaiming VERY loudly in front of the children, "Oh @%$& - the Yorkshire puddings!" as I ran (well, slid) helter-skelter across the kitchen to retrieve them from the smoking oven...

By now, my son was hysterical whilst my daughter just stood with a look of abject horror on her face as she incredulously uttered "Mum s-w-o-r-e!"

Yeah, thanks, like I a) needed to be laughed at and b) needed to be reminded that I had let myself down utterly in front of the kids <rolling eyes>

I took the meal through and a now silent son passed me the cranberry sauce (which I had forgotten) "Thought you might want this..." he said with ever such a certain hint of sarcasm...

Ha! Well, I'll have the last laugh when I make their lunchboxes up tomorrow morning. One inkling of any comments about my lack of culinary prowess and a certain #1 son will find flower-shaped sandwiches when he opens his lunch box in front of all his friends...

Oh, and they only asked if I could make caramelized bananas for pudding

AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sparing you the details, I made cold bananas in a boiling hot mud-brown sauce (most of which still remains adhered to the saucepan on account of the fact that I'm a little wary of the dishwasher) which the children ate, without complaining.

They said it was "nice" whilst looking at each other in a weird way...

Betty Crocker I am not.