Thursday, September 18, 2008

Home Economics....Not a Waste of Time

If memory serves, I was not allowed to take Home Ec. class in high school because it was just a "filler" and wasn't really necessary. Well, fast forward to 30-year-old single mother me, and I think it might have been a little more useful than chorus.

In a feeble attempt to make homemade pizza the other night (in order to save money), I made a sort of, semi-edible, pizza that my son would NOT eat. The first problem: it said to spread the dough with floured fingers. After figuring out what that meant, I realized I do not own flour (why would I, I have NEVER made anything from scratch). Second problem: the pan was supposed to be greased. My question is, with what? I sprayed a little PAM and that seemed to do the trick. Problem three: it said to put a cup of sauce. Well, that was way too much. Every bite of pizza squirted out piping hot sauce. Last problem: I got distracted watching TV and didn't hear the oven beeper going off, so the cheese was totally burnt and crusted over. So when William wouldn't eat it, I said, "I'm sorry I screw everything up!" and instead of saying something like, "No you don't mom!" he said, "That's OK" and walked away with his replacement dinner, a plate of flat turkey (sandwich turkey as opposed to pieces of a whole turkey- 'cause we eat that so often (not) that we have to distinguish the two types of turkey).

Earlier the same morning, I had attempted pancakes. William suggested I not try pancakes again.

The point is, maybe I would have benefited from Home Ec. Perhaps learning how to sew a button or make pancakes would not have been a waste of my time. I'm sure they learned other things in that class, like how to balance a check book or do laundry. I've learned all of these things from the "School of Hard Knocks" which has one hell of a grading curve.

6 comments:

Kelly Moore said...

OMG... I hate, hate, hate those "spreadable" crusts. I mean more than anything in life. It easily takes me 20 minutes to get it to fill the pan, and then it has stupid holes all over it and burns because it's uneven. I feel your pain.

Annie said...

You get an A for effort and you are certainly one up on me as I have never made a homemade pizza! Due to you and Kelly's comments I may not either! Home Ec wasn't that great, the only thing I remember that I learned was how to bake a cake and chocolate chip cookies. Recipes that you could easily find on a box of cake mix or package of chocolate chips. For your next venture I would try something like a casserole or crock pot something. You can never mess those up!

Unknown said...

Oh yeah...I've screwed up a pot roast in a crock pot.

TJ said...

www.papajohns.com

Hannah said...

I can't even spread out pizza dough and I fancy myself a good cook. John has to do it since he worked at papa johns, yes John, worked at Papa "Johns" funny I know. But he is like a pizza master. He even makes the perfect crust.

Unknown said...

I should have clarified. The crust acutally turned out OK, the rest was BAD!