Bam! Nailed It!

This was dinner one day last week. Sad thing is... I made us eat it! Luckily it didn't taste quite as bad as it smelled. The top picture is delicious baked potato soup... SERIOUSLY it is delicious (though not so delicious when charred)! It comes from one of my favorite cooking blogs (skinnytaste.com). The recipe calls for steamed cauliflower. I have a double-boiler-steamer-whatever-they-are-called set of pans. I put the cauliflower in the steamer pan and water in the bottom pan. I turned the stove on and let the pans do their magic. I was "around" while the veggies were steaming... but didn't think to check on the cauliflower until I smelled a TINY bit of smoke. I've steamed veggies before and have never had any troubles. Apparently I've used more water when I've steamed before... When I walked over to the stove I could see wisps of black smoke coming out of the boiler pan. I took off the lid and top steamer pan only to discover not only major amounts of black smoke... but a charred boiler pan and a nauseous odor! I'm still not sure what happened exactly... apparently the boiler pan boiled dry and i think the cauliflower drippings dripped down into the boiler pan and caught fire... they were still smoldering when i pulled the pan off the burner. I always thought cauliflower smelled bad when it was steaming... I have discovered the smell of cauliflower is UNBEARABLE when it is burned! I also discovered the odor of burned cauliflower drenches your clothing... for the next few days wherever we would go (church/work/shopping) I could smell us and the cauliflower! So disgusting! It took DAYS to get our house aired out! Since I had gone through all the work to make the rest of the soup I added the cauliflower (the cauliflower steamed in black smoke... not the charred cauliflower). The soup just didn't taste the same that night. I think its good to eat bad dinners though... reminds me to be especially grateful when a good dinner comes along!

(P.S. I insisted that Brent not throw our burnt pan away... I have salvaged a lot of burned pans and wanted to see if I could save this one also! I just feel like it has become a good friend. My steaming buddy. Miracle of miracles... it scrubbed clean! The pan looks like new again... except the "golden" color around the outside of the pan where it got burned from the stove burner. Bet the pan is looking forward to being able to steam veggies again SOON!)

I found this picture on Pinterest one day MONTHS ago. I can relate. I laughed HARD when I first saw it. I laughed so hard I cried when I tried to describe it to Brent. I honestly couldn't stop thinking about it so I found it again online and printed it out. It now hangs proudly on our fridge. It comes in handy for good kitchen therapy... OFTEN.