Blender Blunder

Yesterday, I took some time to ponder next steps for my blog. I was reading through some notes and things I’ve previously written as I’ve experienced life. I came across the story that I’m going to share with you today. It’s funny, telling of my abilities, and filled with too many exclamation points, but you’ll understand why when you read it. This may take you 5 or so minutes to read, but I believe sometimes we just need some humor in our day. I hope today, you’ll get at least one laugh from my story.

True Story Ahead

Written on October 11, 2015

I’ve known for quite some time cooking is not one of my best skills. Okay, I’ll be honest. I’m a horrible cook. I not only injure the food I’m preparing, but I injure myself in the process too.

Currently, I’m nursing three wounds on my hands. One resulted from slicing a carrot just a little too short on one of those things that slices carrots. See? I don’t even know what some tools are called. I bought this slicing tool to speed up the process of slicing and dicing fruits and vegetables. I’m not sure cleaning up blood speeds up the food prep process at all.

Another wound is a paper cut resulting from parchment paper, which I’m going to add has become one of my favorite cooking tools. Yes, parchment paper is a tool, and it’s a miracle tool! Food doesn’t stick to it! Let me restate…my food doesn’t stick to it.

The last wound appeared from last night’s episode, which I’m graciously calling, “blender blunder blister.” Yes, it does sting a little while I’m typing. Thank you for asking.

So that you’ll understand my situation better, I owe you an explanation why I’m trying to cook. I’m a mom, that’s why! And moms mostly want to help their children overcome tough things. We want them to be successful. We want to them to experience a healthy life. We want them to grow and be happy. Even when our children are adults, we want to help them through life.

My daughter Rachel is 19 years old. She’s a beautiful young woman. She has talent she doesn’t even know she has…yet! One thing I know she knows though is that God has blessed her with the beautiful eyes. We refer to them as “Those Eyes!” They get you every time.

So when my eyes meet hers, and I see pain and discomfort, my mom heart bursts. So I take on responsibilities to support her.

Less than a month ago we started the Whole30 Program in hopes of helping her overcome some health issues. I knew it would be difficult for her. I decided I’d do the program with her so I could know what she’s experiencing and lend encouragement to her along the way. Needless to say, I’ve had my own discomfort doing this program, not so much health wise, but cooking wise.

Oh my goodness sakes! I’m making things I never thought would come out of my kitchen, like clarified butter, homemade mayonnaise, and salmon cakes made with coconut flour and pumpkin.

Trying to eat only whole foods is a challenge. But it’s not only just eating whole foods, if you take on The Whole30 challenge, you are also committing to eliminating all dairy, gluten, non-gluten grains, sugar, and legumes. By the way, did you know peanuts are technically legumes? That’s right, no legumes means no peanut butter!

It’s all good! I can handle all the food changes. It’s the cooking regimen that has held me hostage!

In fact, I’ve done more prepping, slicing, dicing, squeezing, emulsifying, boiling, roasting, simmering, scooping, and measuring of food in the last month than I’ve done in my whole life combined!

Actually, I’m kind of proud of myself. I’ve actually cooked some things that taste good.

However, last night, I got a little too cocky with my new cooking skills. I thought I’d try another new recipe and a new cooking method. Brace yourself. This story may change your perception of me.

It’s autumn right now and the harvest is in. The markets are full of beautiful golden pumpkins and squash, breathtaking red tomatoes, and crispy apples that come in a full range of autumn colors. My mouth is watering just thinking about these foods.

As the temperature gets chillier outside, my tummy wants something warm inside. I really like soups. They’re comforting and warm, and I really like squash soup. You know that thick, creamy, rich blend of butternut squash with garlic, ginger and a hint of cinnamon. Mmmmm!

I discovered the Whole30 Program provides a butternut squash soup recipe. After a long and busy work-filled Saturday, the thought of sitting down to some creamy squash soup warmed my soul. Plus, this recipe didn’t look too hard to make.

Surprisingly, the recipe only had eight ingredients, two of which were salt and pepper. I thought, “How hard can it be to make this soup?”

I’d already purchased cubed butternut squash the week before and froze it. So, I didn’t even need to use cutlery. Plus, after chopping the onion in my nifty new chopper, all I basically needed to do was heat the ingredients together in a large pot, then dump all of it into my blender until they were all mushy, or technically speaking “pureed.” I actually thought, “This looks easy.”

All was going well. The onions had turned translucent in the coconut oil. I added the garlic and the aroma started to drift out of the pot into the air. The smell was hopeful.

Soon, I’d be sitting down eating my first bowl of homemade butternut squash soup.

I stirred in a smidge of ginger and a few cups of chicken broth, dumped in my frozen squash cubes (because I forgot to take them out of the freezer to thaw), and turned up the heat to bring it to a boil.

My husband came into the kitchen, smelled the soup, looked impressed, smiled, and then walked into the living room to watch TV until the soup was ready to eat.

After about 10 minutes, I decided the squash was soft enough to blend. So I turned off the burner and read how to blend this mixture to make it a pureed soup. Here are the instructions I followed exactly, “In one or two batches, transfer the soup to a food processor or blender and blend on high speed until smooth in texture.”

I wondered how I was going to transfer boiling soup from the pot and pour it into my blender without burning myself. I decided a big measuring cup was the tool I needed to accomplish this task.

I tipped the pot to make the soup deeper for dipping. I quickly poured that mixture into the blender. I repeated this step.

Now, I have a love/hate relationship with our blender. It’s old, mean, and cranky. It only has two speeds: fast and faster.

Not only that, but you have to hold the switch in the “on” position to keep it blending, which in and of itself is a magic trick, but for a novice cook like me, it’s nearly an impossible feat.

After I put the lid on the blender, I hesitated for a second, hoped for the best that the blender would abide by my rules and not splatter this boiling soup at me, like it did the olive oil I’d put in it a couple of weeks prior.

Courage welled up inside me. I put my hand on the lid, tightened it to make sure it was secure. Then I lifted the switch to the “on” position and in a split second, soup spewed forth out of the mouth of this evil blender like an erupting volcano.

I know I screamed. I may have sworn. I don’t recall perfectly because I was in total shock.

My husband ran into the kitchen to see what had happened, and I yelled, “I HATE this blender!!!”

Now, my husband, knowing I’ve fought this blender and the blender has won too many times, asked if I’d like him to blend the rest of the soup. I looked at him with those eyes that are determined to kill something, and said, “NO, I can do this!”

Under my breath, I probably swore again because some of my savory squash soup was now on the counter and the sides of the blender.

I’m known to persevere through tough times. So, I got the measuring cup again and poured two more cups of soup into the blender. My husband offered to hold the lid and turn on the blender so that if the blender burst again, he’d get hit with the boiling soup, instead of me. (Wasn’t that kind of him?)

But strong-willed, persevering me, declined. He nodded. He knew I needed to be the one to fight this battle. He stepped aside, but still stood by (just in case). I shook it off like a strongman about to lift a car, took a deep breath, and turned on that blender.

Do I really need to describe to you what happened next? You’ve probably already guessed the outcome, especially if you’re an experienced cook.

Yeah, that blender kicked my butt, and my counter, my cupboards, my entire utensil container filled with clean utensils, my stovetop, my floor, my spice rack, my clean towels hanging on the stove, my under-the-counter light, my wall, my apron, my husband, and my hand. Once again I declared, “I HATE this blender!!!”

Because I was too tired to make anything else and because I’d put too much of myself into making that soup to throw it out, I scraped what little squash soup was left in the blender and put it in two bowls.

It wasn’t savory squash soup at all. Let’s just say it didn’t look anything like the picture at the top of this blog post. With all that happened, I forgot to add two of the eight ingredients: salt and pepper. This squash soup was liquidy, stringy, and tasteless. The only thing it had going for it was that it was still a little warm. My husband graciously swallowed the soup and didn’t say a word. (Now that’s love!)

Moral of My Blender Blunder

Have you ever had a situation in life where you longed for something and were hopeful things would turn out great so you could enjoy the benefits of your efforts? You believed you had a good strategy. You followed it step by step just like you were instructed. Everything was going as planned until you dumped everything into that one thing, and then it burst all over the place leaving you injured, frustrated, and had a total mess to clean up?

Perhaps, like me, you were perplexed by the whole experience. How did that happen? I did everything right. Or did I?

1. I was arrogant. I didn’t know everything I needed to know. Had I known hot liquids expand in blenders so you need to blend small portions at a time and ALWAYS hold a dishcloth on top of blender (because it may erupt), I would have added that step to my instructions. Actually, I would have first let the soup cool down before blending.
2. I refused helped. When my husband graciously offered to assist me, I declined. I could do it myself! I was fully capable. Really?
3. I was stubborn. That soup was horrible! I should have thrown all of it down the drain. Why did I torture both myself and my husband to eat that insipid goop?

You see that’s what happens when we get a little too full of ourselves, otherwise known as pride, and we don’t let God help us. Sometimes we really need to stop persevering and surrender.

As I relive this story today, a few Bible verses come to mind that really help sum up my blender blunder:

• Pride goes before destruction (Proverbs 16:18) Cocky Michelle defeated by the evil blender.
• God helps us in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16) Sometimes through husbands offering to assist.
• There’s a time to keep and a time to throw away (Ecclesiastes 3:6) Yeah, that soup needed to be thrown away.

So there you have it. My advice to you is be humble, accept help, and know when to let go. Oh, and don’t ask me to help you with any cooking. I’m not very good at it.

P.S. Thanks to Hannah Girl Photography for “Those Eyes!”