burnt poo

so tonight i decided i would cook. i don't cook a lot, and i started feeling a little badly that i've had so much free time this summer and still haven't cooked much. last weekend i actually went and bought a cookbook. my first such purchase. i guess a lot of people get them as gifts as well, but i'm not a person they think to give them to for some reason.  anyway, i got the sandra lee semi-homemade cookbook. sounds easy. i've been perusing the recipes for a few days and thought i'd try one out before i head out to cali. i went by the store to get the ingredients. first thing i learned was that not all stores have the things you need for semi-homemade cooking. i had to improvise. second thing i learned was that contrary to what people say to make you feel guilty about not cooking, it's cheaper to eat out. we could have gone to two semi-decent meals for the price i paid for the ingredients of this one. maybe cookbooks are supposed to be used only for guests? i don't know.

for my first attempt with this particular book, i chose the recipe entitled "steak pinwheels with sun-dried tomato stuffing and rosemary mashed potatoes." it sounds daunting, but how can it be when it's semi-homemade? prep time 12 minutes. simple. i got everything put together and in the oven and went out to my yard to water while it cooked. so easy i can multi-task. jon got to my place, i finished the potatoes with his help, the dinger went off, and i opened the oven to pull out the main course...burnt poo. here is what dinner was supposed to look like:

this was my version of the dish...

not even close. i couldn't believe it when i saw it...my stomach sank. we laughed and ate it anyway and will be eating it tomorrow for dinner as well. i decided that i'm going to have my own cooking show where i try people's recipes from cooking shows and cookbooks and show viewers what it's really going to turn out like. or maybe others can make it look like the beautiful photograph, and i'm just cooking impaired. i don't know. next time i'm trying something from the "cocktails" chapter. that could be a little harder to mess up.