Smoked Broccoli

Wee 1 and her parents had dinner with us last night.

Generally when we have dinner guests Mark's job is to take the guests into the other room while I get dinner finished because I cannot chit-chat and cook at the same time. Inevitably I get distracted by the conversation and then lose my place in the meal preparations. Cooking is the ultimate multi-tasking experience if you want to get everything on the table at the same time while it's all still hot. Adding a layer of mere casual talk can be problematic...tonight it was disastrous.

Wee 1's parents have long been more like family than friends, but outside of church we don't get to visit very often. So instead of sending them with Mark to sit in the living room, I attempted, against my better judgment, to talk and cook.

Both pastas were done cooking at the same time, the salad was on the table, and the sauces were finishing, when the smell of smoke wafted through the kitchen. I checked everything and it all seemed fine--then I looked at the vegetables I had steaming and realized that what I was seeing was no longer steam coming out of the pot.

I had let the steamer run dry and the stainless steel pan was smoking. I pulled it off the burner, whisked the steamer basket away from the smoke, and tossed the smoking pot into the sink. Then I turned my attention back to the broccoli. It had an interesting tinge to it and a slightly smoky smell. Wondering if I had ruined it completely, I tasted just a bit. Sure enough, it was smoked through and through.

After some good laughs over smoked broccoli, we enjoyed a good and long overdue visit.