Cooking a "Rachael Ray" in real time

Have you ever seen Rachael Ray cook? Have you ever read her cook books? I love Rachael Ray but she does not have kids running around while she cooks, plus she's cooking in a perfect studio kitchen with everything on hand and ready to go. So here's my real time version of her Lime-and-Honey Glazed Salmon with Warm Black Bean and Corn Salad:

(Bold words are recipe instructions. Italic word are my thoughts, or what I think my children are thinking)

- Start at 5:01. Walk into kitchen and cringe at the pile of dishes in the sink. Quickly throw dishes into (an unusually) empty dishwasher.

- Run down stairs to basement to get a can of beans and can of corn. Come back upstairs to notice Noah has pulled a chair into the kitchen up to the sink and is filling a mixing bowl with water. "Noah, keep the water in the sink. If you get it all over the place you'll have to leave the kitchen."






(I guess these pictures were taken before I loaded the dishwasher. this last picture you can see the top of the mixing bowl Noah was playing with)

- grab an onion, bell pepper, garlic, honey, and limes. open cans. look at recipe for 5th time.

Preheat a medium skillet over medium heat with 2 tablespoons of EVOO (twice around the pan).

- whoops. the "twice around the pan" thing must be based on some special Rachael Ray nozzle... Turn on stove. " Noah! please stop wasting the water!" [Noah: whatever that means mom]

- Chop up onions. grab a few spices. Maren's crying. run to the other room. shove paci in mouth and search for light-up singing star to attach to her bouncer seat. run back into kitchen and grab dish soap bottle out of Noah's hands. Ignore Noah's mess.

Add the onions, garlic, red pepper flakes, cumin, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes.

- Add onions. search around for garlic press. garlic in. 2 minutes already gone by. "Noah, that's enough water! turn it off!" search for teaspoon. can't find it. 1/2 teaspoon will do. round up spices. snatch opened beans and corn cans from Noah's hands.

While the onions are cooking
- too late. they're cooked, skip ahead to next directions

To the cooked onions, add bell pepper (which is still unchopped at this point) and corn kernels and cook for 1 minute.

- Quickly chop bell pepper, throw in pan along with corn.

Add the chicken stock and continue to cook for another 2 minutes.

- oops! gotta dissolve my bouillon in water. Noah pours bowl of water all over the floor. "Noah, you're done. You have to get out of the kitchen now. " Noah starts to protest. "You need to go potty, Noah." Pull Noah off the chair and send him out of kitchen. Noah sprawls out on dining room floor. Maren's crying. Microwave beeps (my chicken stock is done!) Add chicken stock to pan. just bought me another 2 minutes! ok, now back to "while the onions are cooking..."

preheat a medium non-stick skillet over medium-high heat with the remaining 2 tablespoons of EVOO. In a shallow dish, combine juice of 1 lime, honey, chili powder, salt, and pepper.

- grab cereal bowl and start to add ingredients. Noah pulls up a chair. "Noah, you still need to go potty." Noah: "I don't want to go potty" "Noah, don't touch ANYTHING." get skillet ready and stovetop turned on.

(further down in directions, back to bean mixture) Add black beans and cook until the beans are just heated through.

(Back up to salmon) Add the salmon fillets to the lime-honey mixture and toss to coat thoroughly. Add the seasoned salmon to the hot skillet and cook until just cooked through, about 3 to 4 minutes on each side.

- Add beans to corn mixture. transfer lime-honey mixture to a different type of shallow dish. grab salmon and attempt to cut it into 4 fillets. knife sucks, aww forget it. coat fish in lime-honey, "Noah, don't touch anything!" Maren's whimpering now. Throw fish in skillet. oops, forgot to season with salt and pepper. oh well. Turn off heat from bean and corn mixture.

- "Noah, let's go potty." grab Noah's hand and start for bathroom. Noah's pulling me back and forth trying to grab several toys to bring with him. He runs into a door frame. starts bawling, BIG TIME. I walk away*. Return to kitchen and mop up spilled water.

(back to the beans) Remove the skillet from the heat and add the juice of the second lime, the cilantro, and spinach. Toss to wilt the spinach and then taste and adjust the seasoning. serve...

- Grab flipflops, run out to garden to grab some cilantro. hardly any worth picking. notice all of my green beans that need picking. ignore and run back to house. Noah's in the kitchen again grabbing at a bottled of maple syrup that was left on the counter. Still has not gone potty. Snatch bottle away and shove in the pantry. Turn the beans back on (realizing only now that I wasn't suppose to do that!). flip the salmon. add salt and pepper.

- add pitiful amount of cilantro and the lime juice. Get spinach out of fridge--looks worse than I remembered. salvage as much as possible and set aside the rest for my compost. Whoa! the heat on the salmon "somehow" got turn up really high. turn heat back down. stir bean mixture for practically the first time. turn heat off beans. grab Noah and take him to the potty (finally!)

- Salmon is still not done. "Noah, can you turn Maren's star back on and give her the paci?" At least Noah is always obedient when I ask him to help Maren. Set table. put Noah in high chair. Cut away cooked half of salmon. put food on table. about to sit down. "Mom, I'm thirsty" grab milk for Noah. sit down at 5:51. Maren's crying. Spinach is a little slimy. corn and bean mixture otherwise good. salmon is ok. finish dinner at 5:56. check salmon that is still cooking. still not cooked through. turn off stove and throw salmon in tupperware knowing it will get cooked when microwaved for leftovers. grab Maren, sit down, and relax for 2 minutes.

Noah: "Mom, I'm done! come get me!"

...

According to Rachael Ray, the whole cooking process should have taken about 15 minutes. It took me almost an hour. Granted, I didn't have everything chopped up and ready to go. but still.

Somehow, I kept my temper through this whole process. Dinner was a bit of a disappointment. Entire house smells like fish, still.

(It looked pretty good at least)


(notice Noah's soaking wet sleeves, and no pants)


* I usually am more sympathetic to Noah when he cries after getting hurt. But, when he hurts himself because he is dawdling and disobedient, I'm not so sympathetic.

If you didn't notice, Mark was absent during this whole episode. He had to study all evening at school. bummer.