I call myself a Travel and Food writer. No, this is not about TRAVEL. Today’s post is about FOOD. More to the point, it is about a food failure. And even more, this is about learning that certain crazy old broads such as myself should not attempt to make hash browns. Please let this be a lesson so that you do not end up in hash brown Hell!
To be honest, my first mistake was PROBABLY thinking that things would go well. I mean, seriously, I’m over 60 and not one known to follow directions. I am not a patient person, and I don’t spend much time in the kitchen. I have one favorite go-to dish that I make about every other month. Someone else in the household does most of the cooking.
((By the way, y’all… I chose this photo to shine a light on a Food Fail… because I could not find a photo of horrible hash browns. ))
Since I am not traveling this month, I found myself bored on a Saturday with too much time on my hands. I decided to make hash browns with no idea of how to do so. Having identified some potatoes, I peeled five of them. My second mistake, I found a flat potato grater and tried to act like I knew what to do as tiny particles of mush began flying all over the room. The panic set in when I could not identify the correct way to hold the potato to keep from shredding my own fingers, ouch!
My third mistake was to quickly glance over an on-line recipe while taking a break and having a cup of coffee. No, wait, it was taking the break, not reading the directions carefully, then disregarding the part about rinsing off and the part about reducing excess moisture. I was not sure what that meant or how to do it. While there were at least four mistakes in this one paragraph, I will just count them all as one unit.
By this time, I was getting quite hungry and eager to devour the delicious treat. The recipe indicated a cooking time of ten minutes. At the end of my ten minutes, it was not a pretty sight. They were an odd color and still looked raw. That is when I PROBABLY made my fourth and fifth mistakes. The obvious solution, in my silly mind, was to turn the heat all the way up and to add butter.
The weird-colored, weird-textured, weird-smelling mess kept right on cooking for at least twenty more minutes before finally getting crisp. Convinced that I had entered hash brown Hell, I stubbornly determined that I would eat them regardless of how they looked. As I turned to get a bowl, the phone in my hand rang and I dropped it while tripping over the cat.
Yes, I did eat the horribly unattractive hash browns. One roommate took a bite and said that even though they were ugly they still tasted good. The other roommate thought it was some unknown yet okay-tasting type of meat.
Today’s kitchen adventure did not go well. The first roommate thought the whole thing was hilarious while the second roommate knew better than to make any more comments. The cat is keeping a safe distance while also trying to figure out how to make this all about her.
Next time, instead of hash brown Hell, I will do the right thing …. by going to Waffle House!
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