Death Tacos

I'm not much of a cook.

My chef when I'm away from home!

I just never really needed to be before.  But, now that I'm a married lady, I decided it was high time to learn.

The big problem is that at the moment I work long hours (like 9:30 am to 7:00 pm) and sometimes come home pretty late.  Enter the magic of the slow cooker.  I can prepare in the morning and it is ready to go when I get home.  Perfect.

Well, it should have been anyway.  But last week on Thursday morning while I was trying to put together a recipe for beef tacos, I realized we didn't have a can opener for the Roma tomatoes.  

I had to open the can with a juice can opener, stabbing around the edges.  I was horrified that there might be basically pieces of shrapnel metal in this beef.  What if somehow a piece fell in and then Nate's throat got sliced open?

I then told my mom about the recipe and she (the queen of all things OCD kitchen related) asked if I had put enough water in the slow cooker.

I hadn't put any water in.  I even poured the water out of the tomatoes can.  The recipe didn't ask for water.

My mom now informed me while I was on the way to work that I may burn the house down.

Great.  So now I have to worry about the metal and a fire.

At this point, mom put the icing on the OCD cake and asked, "Did you check the date on the beef?"

Of course, I hadn't.  My OCD has not developed well in the kitchen arena, mainly because I haven't been in the kitchen that much.  Now I was on alert though.  These tacos risked internal bleeding, fire, and food poisoning.

Should we even eat them?

Mom, too horrified to hold back and without being asked, actually came to my house and put water in the slow cooker.  So, when I arrived home that night, our house was very much not on fire.  At this point, I had to make a choice about the other risks.  

Do we eat the tacos or not?

I warned Nate about the metal, but (in what I consider a triumph) we decided to go forward with the meal.  

And you know what?  Those tacos were so good, we each had three.

I am happy to report that we have both survived the incident and I feel a step closer to tackling OCD in the kitchen.  Small victories are still worth celebrating.