A Recipe for Disaster: Attention Deficit Disorder & Cooking

So,  let's start with this. If you have ever met me even once, even for 5 minutes, that's enough time to realize I have some serious ADD, because my attention span at its un-medicated worst is about 3 minutes...tops. Shiny things are my world, as is playing with my hair and wondering if I should dye it again, and thinking way too much about how I would rather be surfing for cheap international flights on Kayak.com than most other things.

Tonight, I made dinner for one of my best friends and her new significant other, so I could get to know said sig.oth. by plying their soul open with delicious food. I can be quite charming when I want something from you, for example: info about whether you deserve to be dating my amazing friend ;) (Complimenting me on my cooking will definitely score points, for the record.)

Tuesdays are a long looooong day of classes for me, so my "paying attention reservoir" is pretty much depleted by 4:30 when biostats is over. So attempting 3 brand new recipes--probably not the world's smartest thing to do. But like I said, the limit has been reached, and there is very little brain power left by evening. Stupidity is to be expected. I trip a lot and end up with random burns and bruises because of days like Tuesdays.

Thankfully, one of the recipes I attempted was pretty much idiot-proof. It basically goes: cut open squash, don't slice off fingers, put squash in oven for 40 minutes. Great. Done. I'm awesome. Feeling good about myself right now.

Oh wait, FALSE. Apparently I can actually mess up something as simple as the next dish I attempted which was Spanish red beans & rice. I was instantly frustrated because the recipe called for bacon, which is very inconsiderate of it considering my friend is a vegetarian. How dare that age-old recipe make my life more difficult?!

So I figured...okay...bacon. The most important parts about cooking with bacon are the fat you render from it and the saltiness of said fat. (Mmmmm, aren't you drooling now? As your arteries slowly clog up?) So I substituted bacon fat for just plain old lots and lots of butter and extra salt. Awesome. I rock. Smells good...let those onions and garlic do their savory mouth-watering job filling my apartment with great aromas.

In the meantime, I saw rice on the ingredient list and somehow my IDIOT disordered tired brain thought "oh, okay, cooked rice. Got it".

No. Wrong. Not cooked rice. Just regular, plain, uncooked, normal rice. IDIOT. But said rice was already cooked in my lovely rice cooker, and there was no turning back. So I ended up just mixing all the rest of the ingredients together in the onion/garlic/tons of butter pot, trying not to let anything burn on the bottom because there was no rice or liquid to prevent that...

Oy vey.

Once the mixture that should have boiled with the uncooked rice to give it a lovely integrated flavor seemed ready, I added the cooked rice and mixed it all around until it at least resembled what it should have been. As for the flavor? Well, it was lacking. Because this idiot (me) cooked it wrong so none of those yummy flavors had the opportunity to penetrate into the dish! So I added cayenne pepper and more salt to pump up the experience, and let it sit covered in the pot off direct heat for a little while.

It didn't turn out horrible, as I had terrible visions it would. My quick thinking and pure, utter genius (yes, I'm back to praising myself) with the cayenne pepper saved it! And I think I may have just invented a very quick, though admittedly not quite as delicious or flavorful, vegetarian version of red beans and rice.

Anyway, enjoy the recipe. I'm including the original, but you can deduce the new IDIOT version from the above entry. Have a lovely evening all. I'm gonna go eat some more rice!


RED BEANS & RICE

• 3 bacon slices, chopped
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 3/4 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 cups long-grain white rice
• 3 bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon hot Spanish smoked paprika (Pimentón de la Vera)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 4 cups water
• 1 15- to 151/2-ounce can kidney beans, rinsed, drained

Sauté chopped bacon in heavy 4-quart saucepan over medium-high heat until bacon is brown and fat is rendered, about 5 minutes. Add onion, red bell pepper, and garlic; sauté until onion is golden, about 5 minutes. Add rice and stir until coated, about 1 minute. Stir in bay leaves, tomato paste, cumin, paprika, and salt. Add 4 cups water and beans and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and cook until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed, about 18 minutes. Remove from heat; let stand covered 10 minutes. Fluff rice with fork. Remove bay leaves. Transfer rice to bowl and serve.

Source: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Red-Beans-and-Rice-234813