Indiana Jones and the Cooking for Company Curse

For as long as I can remember, I've had a very serious problem. I can't cook for company. When I was a PK, we hosted missionaries and guest ministers in our home and it was always A BIG DEAL. Mom would generally make some really freaking delicious meals and I, being the only girl and therefore the only one not covered in dirt 99 percent of the time (only like 65 percent), "helped".

Unfortunately, and I don't know if it was due to nerves or just my general leaning toward scatter-brained behavior, whatever I made failed miserably. I made every rookie cooking mistake in the history of mankind. Salt instead of sugar, tablespoons instead of teaspoons, under cooking, overcooking, setting off the smoke alarm (more than once) ... you name it, I did it.

I was soon relegated to head salad maker . And I even messed that up, too.

Oh no, I didn't slice my hand open and bleed on your cucumber slices. That's just salad dressing! <<< this didn't actually happen, but only because we had the dullest knives in the history of knife-dom.

If Indiana Jones had to choose between a pit full of snakes and eating my cooking, he'd pick snakes.

Nah, I'm good. You guys go ahead with that ... salad.

This company cooking curse has followed me into adulthood. I have pretty severe anxiety over having guests in my home anyway (introvert alert!), but when I have to COOK something, heaven help us all. I'm actually not a terrible cook (all the time), but somehow adding the ingredient of extra people just makes it impossible for me to do things correctly. And apparently it's not okay to feed your guests salad and Christmas candy.

Over the holidays, some of Grover's family members came down to hang out and go sledding (I was 37 weeks pregnant and afraid to leave town lest I pop somewhere inconvenient). I needed to come up with something easy to make everyone for dinner and decided on this recipe from the Pioneer Woman. I've made it before successfully and all it really involves is boiling water and cutting up some junk and tossing it in a freaking pot. HOW HARD CAN IT BE?

I followed the recipe. The smoke alarm didn't go off. I was all boo to the ya! The curse is broken! Success! Ahahahaha! Let the celebration commence!

And then we tasted it ...

Let me premise by saying I've not had a lot of experience cooking with jalapenos. The recipe called for two of them and I was doubling it, so I chopped up four (yes, four) nice big ones and tossed them in.

I FOLLOWED THE RECIPE, OKAY?

And guess what I learned?

Four jalapenos is a lot. A LOT. We're talking hell fire and brimstone, people. Burn your face off hot. Make your eyes tear up and your nose drip like a leaky faucet hot. Like you swallowed the sun hot.

We probably would have been better off chugging a bottle of Tabasco sauce.

And my company, being the wonderful, kind people that they are, just sat there and ate it and said nice things while this happened ...

"No, no, Cait! It's great! Really!"
blergharrrhhhahahahaha

And then I cried. Because pregnant. I cried over a pot of beans and it was the end of the world for a good two hours.

And now I kind of think it's funny, but I'm still really sorry for force-feeding everyone inedible food and burning their esophaguses (esophagi?) and whatnot.

I solemnly swear to order pizza in the future. 

Or salad. We can totally do salad ;)