Friday's Triumphs and Tragedies

I set the alarm 15 minutes earlier for Friday morning. I saw a recipe for making your own "healthy" deli lunch meat, so I thought I'd try it. I thawed out a beef blade roast (they called for a chuck roast, but I couldn't find one in the freezer) overnight.

So, I got out the bigger, oval crock pot. I put in a layer of large sliced onions. I seasoned the roast on both sides and then cut slits here and there into the meat. I sliced up three cloves of garlic and stuck them into the slits. Then I took a 16 ounce jar of Pepperocini and poured it, peppers, juice and all, on top. Just before I left for work, I turned it on low (its supposed to cook for 10 hours).

I must say, when I came home for lunch, it smelled fantastic. What you are supposed to do when it's finished is let it cool, then chop up the peppers. Next you make thin slices across the grain of the meat. When you make the sandwich, you use a hoagie roll, put horseradish sauce or mustard on the bottom, pile on some beef and add some of the pepper rings. Then you top it with a slice of provolone cheese. You zap it in the microwave for 30 seconds to melt the cheese and eat it.

Sounds good, but I'll let you know how it turns out.

I had to go to the new building in the afternoon and, coming back on I-96, a stone hit my windshield. At first it was just a dimple (the ones you can get fixed) but by the time I got back to work it had turned into about a four inch crack! So, I called around and found it will cost me $200.99 to get it replaced! Dammit! Anyway, I have an appointment to get it done on Tuesday.

It was over 70 degrees F. when I went home at 5:00 PM (still banging that drum). So, I checked my email, voice-mail and the snail mail, and then I changed my shoes. I shut off the furnace and opened all the windows. Then I put on my gloves, went out in the back yard, grabbed the wheel barrow and slowly went down 1/3 of the back yard, picking up twigs, branches and trash. It took me almost an hour to get just that part of the yard cleaned up, BTW. But, the sun was warm, a nice breeze was blowing, the birds were singing and it felt good to be outside and getting things done!

Back inside, I changed clothes and then pulled out the roast and the peppers. I put them on a platter to further cool, dumped the onions into the garbage disposal and soaked the crock pot liner in hot water and dish detergent.

I dragged out my grill and got the charcoal lighter fired up. Back inside, I got out three pounds of russet potatoes. In searching for grilled potatoes, I came across a lot of recipes, one in particular that called for slitting them open and putting butter in the slit before wrapping them with tin foil. But, I want to use these for potato salad tomorrow, so I am not sure the butter would help. On the other hand, the taste of the butter would be nice, I was thinking.

So, here's where I made a fatal mistake. I smeared each potato with butter before wrapping it in double-folded tin foil and placed them all directly on the coals. Then I cleaned and oiled the grates and put on my hot dogs (tonight's dinner). Now, hot dogs don't take much time to grill, so it wasn't long before I pulled them off, closed the grill and the garage door and went in to eat supper.

I didn't have any buns, so I ate two of them on bread with yellow mustard and chopped sweet onions. The rest went into the fridge for next week's lunches or dinners.

When the timer went off, I went back out to retrieve the potatoes. I pulled them off onto a plate with tongs and let them sit on the cutting board to cool off. I went in and watched some TV. It was too late to start watching the "Maltese Falcon" but I had it taping, anyway.

About 10:00 PM, I went and took the grill back inside. I made sure the garage door was down, checked all the outer doors, closed all the windows and turned the furnace back on.

Then I checked the potatoes. Damn! They were all burned! At first, I thought it was just the skin (from the butter) but, no, they were charred all the way through. So, I'll have to oven-roast the potatoes tomorrow for my potato salad.

Disgusted, I threw them in the trash and went to bed.