And On Wednesday He Ate Roast Beef

I inadvertently made roast beef hash today. It was an accident, a product of inattention and good fortune. I woke up this morning on the early side because I went to bed late last night. Now that may not speak of sense or sensibility but just take my word for the reasons to my early rise. Well that and Chaos decided to cannonball my bad leg and after peeling myself from the Microfilament tiles in the ceiling (I never knew that those ceiling tiles were porous enough for my fingers to dig into) I decided sleep was over rated and headed for the shower.

I don’t know why this post is important and suspect that there is little relevance or purpose or value to this story other than to put something on my blog today. So if you decide not to follow along I will fully understand. I decided that in honor of the early morning I would make a country breakfast with eggs, fried potatoes, even toast and juice, a cup of coffee…
You know the drill.

As I was scouring the kitchen for necessary equipment, materials and ingredients, I remembered why Chaos interrupted my peaceful sleep mostly because he was at my feet yelling, “Put down that knife! You don’t need a knife to make my breakfast! It’s a can! Just open it. Open, open, open!”

So I dutifully deterred from my task at hand to feed the kitties two hours early. After that little service was accomplished, I sat down with the coffee I made and watched the sun come up, forgetting about the major food project that had been begun and abandoned in the kitchen in the wee hours of the morning. After a bit though, the thought of food began to creep back into my mind as my coffee soaked tummy began to rumble. It was that moment I remembered the project in the kitchen and I dashed off to resume my preparations (dashed is a euphamism in my case meaning I wobbled slowly with hurried thoughts racing across my mind).

I decided at thet moment that frying raw potatoes is a much too time consuming a project, so instead I opted for par boiling them first (why that instead of baking them in the microwave, again I don’t always understand my motivations). I maxed out my optimum standing time peeling and paring and took a break at the computer. Nothing too deep; I played a mindless game or three of Freecell until I was ready to take to my feet again.

I noted that it would have been much more time efficient if I had actually put the flame on under the potatoes while I lounged, but corrected the oversight and continued to prep onions, some bell pepper and a nice clove of garlic. Things were orderly and following a decent if casual timeline when the phone rang.

“Hello Michael is that you?”

“Who did you call Ron?”

“Um, you.”

“Well guess what? This is me.”

“Why weren’t you at shuffleboard yesterday?”

“I was, but no one showed up, and I don’t have a key or the phone contact list, where were you Ron?”

“Oh, I was fishing, I wanted to invite you but it was last minute and real early I didn’t want to wake you.”

“You mean early like this morning?”

“Yah, I guess so.”

“So why did you call Ron?”

“Just wanted to know why you missed shuffleboard yesterday.”

“I didn’t, you did Ron.”

“Oh, that’s right. Are we getting old or what?”

“You are. I’ll see you tomorrow Ron.”

“Ok, bye Michael.”

I swear some of my friends would be better off if they didn’t have a brain at all.

I went back to the kitchen and turned the heat off the potatoes, then ran them under water to cool them some and set them in the fridge. I decided to dice up some left over roast to add to my potatoes since I didn’t have any bacon or sausage in the house. Sausage reminded me of Sue’s blog, so I took a break and went to the computer and ended up immersed in the deep end of the Internet for a couple of hours. When I came up for a breath, I remembered breakfast and returned to the kitchen to finish up.

By then I was preoccupied with a witty or insightful comment or two for the blogoshere and spent my time divided between the stove and the computer. Not paying attention I caramelized the onions (not entirely a bad thing in my opinion) and pulled the skillet off the stove and returned to my writing for a bit, then took a break and dashed ( can someone give me a better word? I'll pay in kindness...) back to the stove and added potatoes to the fire. By now the skillet was cold again so the potatoes absorbed too much of the buttery oil in the pan and was not frying, as it should. So I compounded the problem by adding the cold roast beef and the rest of my ingredients. It took forever to get a crusty crust on the potatoes, and what I ended up with was;

Bon Appetit! Roast Beef Hash.

And a very good roast beef hash at that. I know that hash is on my blacklist of edible foods I like but avoid because I have to have a list of foods to avoid or I would simply eat everything. It is the thing I do to feel mature since I still can’t keep a straight face whenever I see the mud flaps on a wholesaler’s big rig that says “Eat out more often!” So I make a list of foods that are not good for me. A small list, a very tiny miniscule list more like a notation than an actual list but Hash is there and I haven’t eaten hash in over a decade.

Then last month when I went down to Rocklin for my nephews B-day we went to breakfast and everyone but me ordered the corned beef hash. I drooled into my oatmeal, fruit cup and egg white omelet as I slouched in my chair and casually leaned over to sniff my niece’s plate. I abruptly stopped that after some of the looks I received from other patrons. I sniffed my brother’s plate instead.

I swear the roast beef hash on my plate is an accident. I did not consciously plan its preparation, it just happened. And I made a lot of it. Enough to have hash all week long, and I will because there is no one here to stop me.

Mmm… roast beef hash…