Is Cooking Manly?

I figured since I'd been writing so much about it, I'd have to address something. "Is cooking really manly?" Obviously eating is manly, why else would we always say the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach. But cooking the food isn't this epic thing like using a chainsaw or going out four wheeling with your F-350. Seriously, the most likely way to die is chopping off your finger with the chef knife and bleeding to death. More likely, you'll die from what your wife does to you, after finding out that you rinsed the blood off the lettuce and put it in the salad. Or so most men think...

What most men don't think about is that "cooking" has an important word inside it. Yep, it's "cook" and in order to cook stuff you've gotta get it hot. And when you get stuff hot, it smokes. And as Smoky Bear always says "where there's smoke, there's fire." And any guy knows that being a pyromaniac (somebody who plays with fire) is one of the most manly things on earth. Therefore, cooking is manly (Euclidean geometry has had a bad effect on my thinking, cause now I prove every point with a proof), so yeah.

Right now you've gotta be wondering why I'm using this phony logic on you to prove that I'm manly even though I cook. So now I'll give you a very non-phony story (it'll be internet-y instead): I was cooking dinner. I was making stir fry. To do this I boiled some pork for about twenty minutes to get it most of the way cooked. I chopped up veggies and a got a pan heating while the pork cooked. I was going to saute the pork and then add in the veggies. But like a good chef I knew I needed oil in the pan or else the food would burn. So I poured oil into the pan...and voile! I had a flaming pan like they do in all the casino ads on TV.

Only problem was this was a LOT of flames. Here's where the manliness part comes in. Instead of A. Screaming, B. Pouring baking soda on it and then screaming, cause the baking soda didn't work, or C. Calling 911 and screaming, like any properly programmed woman would do, I stood there and went "hmm." I then pulled the baking soda out and tried pouring on the pan; that really didn't work. So then I did the manly thing and grabbed the burning pan of oil and tossed in the oven where it would run out of oxygen to burn. *insert epically triumphant music* "Hmm,"it seems the pan fire got the oven fan thingy on fire. I briefly considered throwing the fan thing out the window, however insurance wouldn't cover enough of it to be worth while, so instead I ran and grabbed the fire extinguisher. As a side note I must mention this fire extinguisher had not been serviced since I was born. Proof positive those servicing guys are just fooling everyone into giving them money. So anyways I sprayed down the fan contraption and...um it was epic *insert really epic and triumphant music!*

So the lesson in all that is that cooking is a dangerous and epic task, only for the fittest, most agile, and quickest witted men...or your little sister.

These are in order from funny to funniest, kinda like your mom used to make you eat your dinner (or still does). So if you're smart you'll watch them in order, if not...then not.













So you might be wondering how I posted this day before yesterday and it wasn't on the blog until this morning. It's a called blogger wouldn't work yesterday, so I created the post today and did some awesome post dating work.

Pancakes

I haven't been writing on The Home Skooled much lately, cause I've been doing a lot of writing for actual skool work. Kinda ironic ain't it, especially that I've been writing on politicks. Your saying "excuses, excuses, excuses" and I'm like "yeah, if I do it in real life people will actually tell me to my face to quit whining, so I'll just do it on my blog." Anywho, something else I've been doing a lot lately has been thinking about food, maybe it has to do with not eating as much of it as I'd like to (there are downsides to being a cyclist). So I've been thinking about it so much I think I'll write about it. Today I'm gonna review my sister's home made tortilla recipe, when made by her and by me.

Made by her: I've always thought flour tortillas were pretty good, especially with a little (okay I mean a lot) of cinnamon, sugar, and butter on them. But these tortillas are too good to make tacos with. She has to make about thirty of them in order to have enough to use for tacos, cause I eat the first ten, and my dad eats the second ten, and then my ma and sister eat the next five, and we only have five left for tacos. Needless to say these tortillas are delicious. Best fresh out of the frying pan, they have a warm, soft flavor accented by a hint of butter (how's that for poetic). It's a light flavor, unlike a corn tortilla, so you don't want to ruin it with bold salsa. However these things really should be larger, cause I eat them in three bites.

Made by him: "Um, why are these things turning black?"
                     
                      "I put it on medium low just like you said."

                      "No, I put it on the U in medium, not the O in low.
                       What sorta crazy person would do that?"

                      "ouch, Ouch, OUCH, UUUNCCLEE!"

                      "I'll put on the O in low, now why is it thick like
                       a pancake?"

This was after I got myself completely tangled up in dough. Until you start to bake, you don't appreciate the skill it takes to keep dough from eating you alive like a scene from a horror film. I also just about broke the tortilla press. Seriously, why do they make a press, which can't even really press something flat? And then the fire alarm went off, which isn't anything to really worry about, except that my sister keeps claiming that I got something on fire. There's a major difference between a little smoke and fire. I don't care what the fireman said in that movie, if there's smoke that don't mean there's fire. Anyway to actually review it, they were like pancakes, except not fluffy. And you had to do flat bread tacos, cause for some reason they wouldn't bend like a pancake either. So I think I'll go back to making cookies out of the freezer...

Here's the recipe, which isn't to hard to make...as long as you like flat bread.

4 cups of WHITE flour (I don't care how many years it'll add to my life, tortillas were meant to be white)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of shortening (tortillas aren't good for future basketball players)
1 and 1/2 cups of warm water

...That's where the recipe card ends, so after this it's from my memory (contrary to my sister's opinion I do have one) so either you can do what I say or google how to do it...

You mix up the dry ingredients. Then you cut in the shortening with a fork or that cutter thing. The you mix in the water slowly. Get a frying pan on the stove and heat it to medium-low (experiment to find just the right temperature to brown them correctly). Divide up the dough into little balls, which you then press into the tortilla shape, with a small rolling pin or tortilla press. Make sure these things are really thin, otherwise you get pancakes. Then toss them in the pan with no oil or anything and cook 'em till they look done.