I'm certainly not Betty Crocker, but I'd say that I'm a decent cook.  I can plan meals for a week, make things ahead of time, time a meal so that everything is done at the same time, and I can follow most recipes without effort.  Once in awhile I'll have some trouble - either an error on my part or selecting something that sounds better than it is.

Yesterday I decided to make two full meals so that we'd have enough to eat for two or three days.  It always seems like the beginning of the week is super busy and we tend to eat junk when it gets that way.  Now, I hate leftovers.  I really hate them.  So I decided to make a basic meal that I could turn into a few different meals, thereby disguising the fact that it was a leftover item (and this is tricky since I'm trying to fool myself).  I opted for Emeril's Southwest Chicken with black beans, guacamole and fried tortilla strips.  I've made this recipe probably half a dozen times, have simplified the recipe and reduced the time, and I know it can be turned into a few other meals very easily.

Things started to go in the wrong direction immediately.  The tomatoes smelled stale and had flat flavor (not that surprising, really, since it's January).  The avocado was fuzzy inside and a scary green-brown-gray, so that killed my plans for the guacamole.  The chicken smelled a little funny, but since I had a few glasses of wine Saturday night I chalked this up to my heightened sense of smell and started cooking it anyway.  The smell only got worse as it cooked.  Not wanting to have a whole family suffering from salmonella, I threw the whole thing away. 

But the smell lingered.  I scrubbed everything.  And had an internal fight with myself regarding whether or not the roasting pan could be salvaged (I opted for cleaning, scrubbing, then a run through the sanitize cycle of the dishwasher...because I guess I really am that crazy).  And even though it smells better in here, all I can think about is that gross commercial where the woman washes her kitchen countertop with a slab of raw chicken in an attempt to warn you about germs.  Like I needed that visual.

Now my big fear is that it may be long time until we are ready to eat chicken again.  It's been a few years since we cut seafood out of our diet (Marty) and almost two years since I've cooked with dairy (Sophie).  But since Marty's "do not eat" list has increased, we've recently had to cut out some major staples in our diet - beef, wild game (which is a big bummer since Marty got a deer this year and our freezer is FULL and not with things I selected), all fish, beans (not the vegetable kind), and mushrooms.  I mean what is left - vegetables and poultry.  Except now all we can think about is rotten chicken.

On the table last night: Lysol, fragrant candles, and open windows
On the table tonight: Hungarian goulash (using up our 1x/week allowance of beef)