Hey ma, where’s the meatloaf?!

Is it possible for a non-cook to have a specialty? If so, mine is clearly this barbecue meatloaf recipe that Jessie included in her Christmas gift last year—a homemade cookbook titled “Recipes for the Working Man” that came complete with detailed instructions, personalized notes and photos of us in situations when certain meals might appeal.

Anyway, this meatloaf is amazing. Growing up, my mom always told me how much she disliked meatloaf, but she still made it regularly because she knew I liked it. But (sorry mom), this recipe trumps the meatloaf of my youth. And I’m proud to say I cooked it flawlessly last night.

Unfortunately, my first foray into apartment cooking did not go quite as smoothly. Let’s revisit Monday night, shall we? I avoided total disaster, but there were moments when I was thinking McDonald’s was in my future. Keep in mind that I have next-to-no cooking experience, so the fact that I was even attempting anything beyond sticking a pizza in the oven was a big deal for me.

I had just gotten home from work and decided to go with chicken. I had some frozen, pre-breaded chicken breasts from Giant Eagle. They did have a microwave option, but I wanted to challenge myself a little more than that. Plus, I just saw some report on the news the other day about microwaves insufficiently cooking chicken, and I was in no mood to deal with food poisoning on my first attempt.

So, I put some oil in the pan on the stove and turned it on medium as per the instructions. In the other pan, I had some peas. And in the microwave I had one of those 90-second instant rice pouches. Not quite a gourmet meal but a step up from the challenge of pizza, for sure.

I had everything under control until the smoke alarm in the kitchen went off. I couldn’t reach what I thought was the detector on the ceiling. Eventually I was able to jump and tear it down only to realize it wasn’t the device that was beeping.

As newly employed ESPN pitchman M.C. Hammer would say, “Whose beeper keeps beepin’ and beepin’?” Then, I located the culprit, also located high up on the wall. I tried ripping it out, but it was still beeping as it dangled from its wires. I then saw there was a button to press. Finally, I had the piercing alarm shut off, only to return to the sight and smell my now blackened chicken.

I was not hoping for extra crispy, but that’s what I got—on one side of it anyway. I turned off the burner yet failed to notice that the cooking oil was still very much cooking the chicken. I then stuck a fork in the chicken to try to get it out of the pan. By now my peas were boiling so I switched my attention there. When I went back to the fork (still in the chicken), it was burning hot. Metal conducts heat, maybe? I should probably know these sorts of things.

I quickly turned on some cold water and ran it over my finger to soothe the burning. After that pain subsided, I was able to dump some peas, rice and applesauce onto a plate along with barbecue sauce and the semi-burnt chicken. All in all, it was a decent meal.

I’m not batting a thousand, but I haven’t exactly struck out cooking either. Two days. One really good and one fair meal. Maybe I can handle this independence thing after all. Print this post