On Friday I had an amazing day in Seattle with my pals. We didn’t get as much of our holiday shopping done as we had intended but we had SO MUCH FUN. I came back relaxed and rejuvenated - for a few minutes at least!

So yesterday I wanted to do something special for hubs to say thanks for spending his whole day off work (and well into the evening too, but that’s another story…) looking after the kids.

I remembered that last week the kids and I were having lunch with my friend Jill and her troop at her house, and we had the most heavenly soup I had ever eaten. She said she had made it herself and that it was so easy that even I could do it. I thought that was a bit of an exaggeration, but she insisted. After all, it was really just squash and garlic put in a blender. MMmmm……. How hard could that be?

So I decided to surprise hubs by having him come home to a delicious home-made meal. Well, the soup part at least - I brought some lovely crusty bread to go with it, and one of those salad-in-a-bag things. And a berry pie for dessert.

So yesterday late afternoon when hubs was off with one of his guy pals, Z. and M. were with their dad and his new wife, and C. was taking a nap, I pulled out the recipe Jill had written for me (and it really did seem easy) and dug right in.

First I had to cut the butternut squash in half. Holy shit! Have you ever tried to cut one of those suckers? You need a damn hatchet. Help me someone - is there a trick to it?

Anyway once that was done the next part was easy. I put a couple of heads of garlic on some foil, poured olive oil over them, wrapped them up and put them and the squash halves on a baking tray in the oven. Meanwhile I cooked up some onion in a big pan… and then waited.

Soon the aroma of garlic roasting was filling the kitchen and I just couldn’t believe how domesticated I felt. Yes, MOI! So what was so hard about this? I poured myself a glass of wine to celebrate my kitchen brilliance.

Soon the squash was ready and I scooped it out of its skin and into the waiting pan. I popped the garlic out of that papery stuff and put it in the pan too. I added a carton of chicken broth and a little bag of dried stuff that Jill had given me. (The recipe had said to use fresh herbs, but Jill (wisely) knew that would never happen and told me to use these instead.)

Then the recipe said to cook it all for 20 minutes, then let it cool. LET IT COOL! Are you kidding? Hubs would be home soon. I didn’t have time to let it cool. Besides, after I let it cool, I just had to heat it back up again. Now that seemed like a complete waste of time to me.

So I filled the blender with my amazing smelling soup, put on the lid, and turned it on.

While it blended I was just imagining hubs face when he walked through the door to the smell of home cooking, and my wonderful soup on the table. He was going to be so surprised. I couldn’t wait.

Then it happened…

What I had envisioned was this….

What I got was this….

And this…

Where did I go wrong?

Am I just a total kitchen disaster?

See folks, now you know that I’m not just making it up. Bad shit happens to me in the kitchen.

Damn, give me another glass of wine.