Chuck Wagon Cooking

Well, I have added another skill to my belt. Not because I set out to accomplish this goal, but because of necessity.

 As most of you have read, I am currently sharing a house with ex-husband number three. All my possessions are in boxes. I don’t know where anything is. Undergarments and nightwear are in a plastic storage bin in the living room, and I am sleeping on the couch. There isn’t even room to open the sleeper sofa. This also means real cookware is packed away gosh knows where.

So what did I decide to do Saturday? Bake my No Brainer Cookies for my granddaughter’s birthday barbeque. I bought supplies at the grocery store, but I didn’t want to invest in real cookie sheets when I have expensive ones – somewhere. Instead, I opted for aluminum cooking pans that you can throw away. Here is where my lack of thinking this through took me south – once again. Oh, and let’s veer to the other issue I battled. Both of my cooking timers are hiding with the cooking utensils, so I bought a cheap timer at a local dollar store.

First order of the day was to locate a pan of some sort to use as a mixing bowl. Then I had to wash everything that I hadn’t already washed before. (I am nowhere near finished cleaning this kitchen.) Once I had everything lined up, I was ready to cook. I mixed the dough, lined the aluminum pans with parchment paper, dropped dough in the appropriate size blobs, popped the tray in the oven and with a swollen head full of “I got this” set the timer.

I am pretty sure the oven at this house works perfectly, because I used to make wedding and birthday cakes in it. I know the temp control is correct. However, I didn’t account for the thinness of the aluminum pans. My first clue was the smell of burning parchment paper. Uh Oh. My cooking instructions on the recipe, which I created, are “bake at 350 degrees for 13-14 minutes.” I was at nine minutes and charring chocolate was not a pleasant smell. I lowered the heat by 25 degrees and tried again. Wait, what was that? The timer went off four minutes early. I handed it to Ramon and told him to run it back to the dollar store and swap it for another one. Now I was left to paying attention to my watch, which meant I couldn’t get caught up loading pans. I paced the floor. I kept opening the door to check cooking status. Second pan fared better than the first, but the cookies were still cooked past that perfect fudge line in the center. Drat. I decided to try to trim the time just as Ramon walked in with a new timer. I turned the knob to 10 minutes and turned my back to load more pans before my dough could dry. Wait, what was that smell? AGAIN? Surely not. YUP. The second timer was a total failure.

By this time I was muttering to myself about the situation I had myself in. Camping in my own house, and I HATE camping of any kind – in a cabin, in a tent in the woods, on the beach – nothing. My idea of camping is in a hotel that does not have a restaurant. It dawned on me that I was literally cooking with pots most people use outdoors. You know - the ones that aren’t in good enough condition to even give to the charity stores? People hang on to them for camp-outs with the guys. Dented. No Handles – there’s that one that has to be moved around with barbeque tongs. Two ragged oven mitts. Knives with split wooden handles. Two big stirring spoons that gladiators probably used in fighting matches. And lots of plastic spoons and forks that came with take-out dinners. All I wasn’t doing was starting a fire in the back yard.

Yet, I have been turning out fabulous meals in spite of the quality of cooking equipment at my disposal. Just goes to show you how hardships can be overcome. I think I will enter myself in a chuck wagon cook off contest. Anyone turning out roasts that melt in your mouth, fabulous pastas, bacon wrapped asparagus and garlic stuffed Cornish game hens using whacked out pans and utensils ought to win some sort of contest.

And my cookies were a roaring success with all the attendees of the birthday bash.

But there is still a bathroom in this house I haven’t ventured into. I have ordered a NOMEX jumpsuit and steel toed boots for that project.