So I’m cooking things… well, I’ve always cooked things – soup from a can, tv dinners, pot pies, grilled cheese, pizza… that’s cooking right? There was also rarely a need to cook anything – my Mother cooked, my Ma cooked, my ex-roommate loved to cook – but I’m not the best person to cook for (picky eater) so they didn’t get to cook with the flare they all had really… But now I”m trying to cook other things.

My fire alarm in the apartment is extra sensitive and seems to go off on anything – I have the fan on the stove, the bathroom, two fans blowing out the window and both windows open and still that thing is going off… I swear its not really smokey… well maybe a little but come on… I’m learning here.

In the morning instead of some really great tasting cereal I’m making 2 eggs, sometimes i put em in a tortilla. I have difficulty with the yolks, I like it to be runny but not raw and I have issues flipping the eggs just right and sometimes I’ve not had them cooked where I like em… and if I break the yoke then I just try to scramble em… eggs are hard and I’m not a fan of hard eggs.

I’ve been cooking steaks for myself too. Between YouTube, Wikipedia and my old roommate Gary it’s been going ok. The first few steaks didn’t turn out quite right and I stuck em in the microwave cause they weren’t done… then they were too done… but I’ve gotten better, they’re very flavorful and not well done (which is how I used to like them 18 years ago or so… ). I’ve had frozen veggies with the steaks, mostly I love Green Giant Buttered Corn… omg so good (don’t look at the calories on the box or the sugar count, just eat it) but sometimes green beans, peas, and mixed veggies (no fuckin’ lima beans in my mixed veggies… those things are nasty).

Tonight I was cooking and it was a rather thick steak – I think that’s part of the problem, thinner steaks might be better to start with to get em how I like – and it wasn’t done quite right. I’m reluctant to do the microwave thing again after the last time. The pan I fry em in is safe in the oven up to 400 degrees so I thought that would be a good move. I placed the pan with the steak still in there in the oven after preheating it… great idea. But my mind saw that handle and decided to grab it… thus the title of this blog “Fire Hot” … ouch, burned my hand a little bit. On the bright side my reflexes are great… dropped that thing like a hot potato … which then splattered grease on my legs, my kitchen and my arm…. yeah… great cooking night tonight.

I think next I’m going to branch out to chicken… my ex-roommate used to make chicken breast all the time and I loved those.  I’m not a fan of sauces, so i’m not likely to branch out there or do anything that has nasty stuff in it (Nasty stuff includes but is not limited to: mushrooms, mayo, asparagus, dressings, soy sauce, cheeses that smell like feet, Chipotle… oh sorry, I was listing nasty things and that just came out).

Maybe I should take a cooking class, just for some basics… I don’t want to try out for Top Chef (love that show, couldn’t eat any of that stuff) but I’d like to have a better understanding of what I’m doing. A class isn’t likely to keep me from grabbing hot handles and at 44 if I’m still doing that it’s too late for me.

Anyway – Note to self: Fire hot