One should not take rice for granted

Well, it finally happened. I have suffered a defeat in the kitchen. Although if I’m honest, it took much longer than expected. I fully believed I would fail from day one, so to have made it this far before this happened is a victory in itself. And thank God for that! I know myself, and if I hadn’t bolstered my confidence with all my previous success, I would be an angry hot mess right now. I would send the family away to find dinner, slam around cleaning while shouting some explicit phrases at EVERY SINGLE (insert choice word) PAN, and go to bed seething and starving. Luckily, that didn’t have to happen this time. I mean, I have spent years learning not to be a sore loser, but when it comes to the kitchen, all bets are off.

So let me break it down for you. I decided to attempt sweet potato and black bean taquitos with a side of mexican seasoned rice.  The recipe in itself didn’t seem too complicated, and I thought I could just cook up some rice and season it myself to pair with the taquitos. That should have been my first indication that things were amiss, me thinking I could fly solo on something. I missed the sign though, and so started in on prepping the taquitos. It was a battle from the get go. You see, sweet potatoes are kind of hard to peel and dice. At least, the two monster size ones I had picked out were. I wasn’t prepared for it, and it set the tone for the rest of the evening.

I finally got them all cubed up and the beans rinsed and drained, only to realize that I didn’t have the corn the recipe called for. “Small hiccup,” I thought. “I’m sure they will be fine without it.” I continued on with the cheese and seasonings, got the filling all mixed, and lay out my pan to start rolling. By this point, the prep has taken me twice as long as expected (why can’t I learn that those little numbers on recipes lie?!), the kids are screaming, and I don’t even want to eat dinner. But I soldiered on, hastily rolling the taquitos and popping them in the oven. I then got to work on the rice.

It’s well known that rice can be finicky. I have cooked real rice, meaning not pre-seasoned instant rice, only one time before today. For this reason I should not have been as confident as I was. Instead, I chose to make not one but two cups of rice, thinking it would be so good we would all want seconds. I was wrong. I messed up the cooking, did not add anywhere near enough seasoning, and then tried to fix the disaster by adding cheese to make it “cheesy mexican rice.” I didn’t even want to try a bite, but I forced myself to. It wasn’t edible. AT ALL. It was a mushy disgusting mess. The two toddlers would not even touch this stuff.

So our dinner consisted of slightly bland taquitos and nothing else. I managed to mess those up too by not following the recipe closely enough. I thought I could just season them myself instead of taking the time to measure everything out. Again, I was wrong. They were at least edible though, and I think the recipe is a keeper if I were to follow it to the letter. Although after my defeat today, I’m sure it will be a while before I can bring myself to try them again.

P.S.

Today marked the official end of my winning-at-life streak. I’m hoping things simply go back to normal. That I just return to being unlucky and carry on my merry way. That the universe does not exact karmic revenge for my winning times to balance things out. I’ll keep you posted.