Home for the Helladays

It was a weird day overall. It started at 8:30 when Betty got up, saw that it was snowing, and noticed the little old man across the road was clearing his driveway. Last week he’d asked me to clear his driveway with his snow blower, and in return, I was supposed to use it to clean ours. I also had to clear his wife’s driveway – they share a duplex. By the time I got up he’d finished the job, so I went out to shovel our driveway. He then called and asked me to come over so that he could show me how to use the blower for later in the day, as the snow was just a coming down. Betty laughed & said I’d been adopted by yet another parent.

The rest of the day went well. The house was all cleaned up in anticipation of Betty’s parents, arriving for dinner. Betty vacuumed & shampoo’d the carpets, while I cleaned the kitchen & washed the floor. Things were running smoothly.

My microwave recipe book said a 3lb roast should take 21-24 minutes per pound to cook. I figured I’d cook it for an hour or so in the downstairs nuker/convection oven, then stuff it in the oven upstairs for the last bit. I had successfully done this before. The roast went in at 5, Betty locked up all the trouble making kitties in the library as she set a beautiful table, and I whipped some cream for dessert.

David & Julia arrived at 6, and I trotted downstairs to the roast shortly thereafter. It didn’t seem cooked, so I put it on for another 10 minutes. When the timer went off I brought it upstairs to the kitchen. It looked slightly sunburned. I took a knife to it….hmmmm….grabbed the temperature probe, jammed it in, & hauled everything back down to the nuker.

“How’s the meat?” asked Betty as she passed me heading for the stairs.

“Raw.”

I checked on the temperature as Betty fed her parents crackers and Bits & Bites. We had one of those videos of logs burning in a hearth playing on the tv. David & Julia watched this while they listened to some nice Christmas Carols and snacked.

At this point there was a commotion in the library as Oreo cornered Marty by the door. Oreo has a problem. When he gets hungry, he gets extremely mean & usually attempts to kill something. I took him to the kitchen & fed him.

By now the potatoes we’d boiled for mashing were ready, so I turned them down onto low just to keep them warm. The frozen Brussel sprouts were slowly defrosting in the upstairs nuker, with butter on them, waiting to be cooked. My whipped cream in the fridge was slowly unwhipping, but I tried not to think about it. The fire on the tv ran out, so we rewound it and put it on again. The match being lit at the beginning sounds like a bomb going off. Very festive.

The nuker finally dinged, so I brought the roast up confident that I’d finally done the job. The outside layer & bottom was cooked - but the damn thing was totally raw inside. Betty & I looked at each other, then at the upstairs nuker. Out came the sprouts, in went the meat for another 10 minutes. Still raw. A consultation of the “Joy of Microwaving” suggested we try 20 minutes on half power. At the end of that, it looked pretty ugly. We stuffed it into the oven and proceeded to make everything else. Meanwhile out in the living room I could hear David yelping as Oreo bit his toes. My boy has a fetish and very strong jaws to go with it.

The Yorkshire Puddings were quickly whipped together and were soon cooking happily next to the charred rock we hoped would be tasty. Betty mentioned something about not opening the oven while cooking the puddings, and trundled off.

I started working on the mashed potatoes. I had cooked enough for an army, and by now all the water had boiled away. I tossed them in a bowl with butter & milk & turned on the mixer. There was so much of the stuff that the big lumps kept bouncing between the mixer spindles above the blades. I ladled about 2 cups into another bowl & kept at it. Betty wandered back out to check on the meat.

“How’s it look?” I asked as she peered through the open oven door.

“Not too bad, and the puddings are ok too…..” she looked at me. I looked at her. “I shouldn’t have the oven door open should I?” She slowly closed it.

Betty took a turn at the potatoes as I stirred the gravy & started the sprouts in the nuker. The potatoes were still lumpy. The ones sitting on top in the pot hadn’t quite cooked all the way through before the water boiled away. Betty said that some people like lumpy mashed potatoes. I hoped her parents were two of those people.

The “roast” had shrunk somewhat. The plate it was on was black. The roast itself was also black. Not grey, not shades of dark, not even crispy black. It was Black. And very hard. We sawed through it and found the center had at last cooked. Fortunately both Betty & her mom only took one piece each, so there was just enough for the four of us.

We sat down to eat at about 8pm (dinner was supposed to be served at 6:30). The meat was tasty but required steak knives to cut through it. The potato lumps were small and forgivable. The gravy was great, as were the sprouts, and miraculously, the Yorkshires had turned out quite nicely.

Dessert went well too. I’d baked a pie, and the whipped cream was fine. Before they left, we gave David & Julia a batch of my mincemeat tarts to take with them. Actually it was the second batch. I’d overcooked the first. I should have taken that as a hint of things to come…..