Sure 'Nuf and A Fire In the Kitchen Story

Yeah !!! My folks and Bob's brother and his wife all got their power restored in Kingwood and Houston last night. 7:18pm for my folks, and 7pm for B & J. Yippeee!!!

I was right---Murphy's Law. I should have mailed the batteries on Monday!

And alas, my rice cooker is no more. Pampered Chef has this nifty, dishwasher safe contraption for cooking rice. I used it for heating those meal-for-two Bertolli meals, too. But, while cooking rice the other day, I thought it would be a good idea to keep all the minerals and vitamins from some carrots I had cooked in the crock pot, and make rice with the liquid. But, the olive oil from the seasoning, and that splash of Newman's salad dressing was just enough to start a fire in the rice cooker in the microwave. I was on the phone with my folks at the time---and the smoke smell started filling the house. I took the smoking rice cooker out of the microwave, and let it cool enough to throw in the trash. Huge melted hole in the bottom. The house still smells smoky. Yuck.

I went to good old Walmart yesterday and bought a pyrex bowl, four quarter, and tried cooking the Bertolli bag in it last night, and it worked out fine. The pyrex bowl cost less than $5 and you have to be careful and use hotpads whenever pulling the bowl out to stir, but it keeps the pasta moist. The skillet method which the package calls "perferred" makes the pasta too chewy for my taste. And like last night, there was a delay in the train, so Bob was about fifteen minutes late getting home, but dinner was fine, waiting with a glass lid on top.