A week of disasters--stay outta my kitchen!

I like to think of myself as a pretty good cook. 

I'm not afraid of a challenge (making my own pasta) or trying something new (breakfast enchiladas). 

I've had my fair share of disasters in the past (trying to cook a steak in a toaster oven).

I've had a great many success (enchiladas, pizza, roasted chicken).

But this past week has been one of the worst in my cooking history.

If we ignore the disasterous week or so I had back in 2006 or 2007, the year my holiday baking turned out more like the Nightmare Before Christmas than tidings of comfort and joy. 

But we're not talking about that now, are we?

Within the past week I've managed to:

1.  Make the worst soup ever created. 

2.  Make a monstrosity out of some innocent stuffed mushrooms.

3.  Make some of the yummiest, but ugliest, potato pancakes.

4.  And finally, make the world's most god-awful pizza. 

Now, in my defense, the soup recipe was new, and I used a too-hot pan, and well, I probably should have been more careful.  The mushrooms just didn't have a fully thought-through execution.  The potato pancakes were tasty, but they stuck like glue to my pan, and I don't know why.  I made them not too long ago and enjoyed tremedous success.

But the pizza.  Oh, the pizza. 

First, I used a new kind of tomato sauce for the base of the sauce.  It should have worked perfectly well, it was after all, organic tomato sauce.  How different could it be?  And I totally forgot to add garlic when I added my seasonings, and garlic is a key ingredient.   And I broke the cardinal rule, I did not taste my sauce before throwing it right on top of the pizza.

Another problem was the pans I used.  I don't know what it is about them, they've been used before, they've been washed many a time, but they still smoke when they're in the 500 degree oven required for making pizza.  And they managed to set off the smoke detectors.

Twice.

By the time the pizzas came out of the oven and were topped with the useless sauce, they were awful.

Horrible.

Inedible.

At least to me.  Apparently the Hubs ate 3 1/2 pieces before I said how awful it was.  The Kid ate 3-4 pieces and like it.

I had two bites and threw the rest of my pizza in the trash.

So was it the sauce, or the smoke that murdered my pizza?  Combination of the 2?  All I can say is that it was probably the worst pizza I've ever made.

Hmmmm, could my problem be other chefs in my kitchen?  I'm not one of those cooks that welcomes help in the kitchen.  I wasn't the one who couldn't wait to cook with my daughter.  I like to be in the kitchen with music playing, chopping and dicing and thinking through my recipe, ALONE.  When people start bugging me, or asking what needs to be done next, I get thrown off my game and that's when bad things start to happen.  I forget ingredients.  I let things cook too long.  Dinners are ruined. 

So perhaps what I need is a sign, "Genius at Work, stand back and no one gets hurt"

But feel free to come back when it's time to clean up, of course.