Overwhelmed Cook

Ok so overwhelmed may be an excessive word. But today, just an hour before my husband got home from work, I decided to conquer all of my cooking tasks at once. I needed to make ketchup, breakfast pockets, and bread. All at the same exact time.

Apparently I suck at making time estimations. If you don't know, when you make your own bread, you have to proof the yeast (aka, let it sit for about 10-15 minutes). I started the honey wheat bread and the whole wheat pizza dough (for the pockets) at the same time, thinking it would work out A-OK. I also had ketchup simmering at the same time. Then suddenly I remembered I hadn't made the two dozen eggs and 2lbs of sausage for the breakfast pockets! Oh man things got crazy quick.

Again, I'm exaggerating but it seemed very overwhelming at the time!

Suddenly there were eggs to be cracked, sausage to be cut and cooked, grease to be drained, ketchup to whisk, yeast to check on, cheese to cut and so on. All while rocking out to one of my Pandora radio stations. It's how I kept my sanity I think.

Fortunately, it doesn't hurt bread to proof the yeast a little longer so I let those sit and I rushed to make the sausage and eggs.

Right when I'm getting the most flustered switching between flipping sausages (getting burned by popping grease...ouch!), scrambling eggs, and whisking the honey into the finally cooled off ketchup, my husband comes to the rescue. How sweet.

So he took over the stove top and I went into kneading bread as fast as my hands could go! I started with the pizza dough for the breakfast pockets because that needed to sit for 15 minutes once it was a workable dough. The bread takes over an hour to rise so that came next.

We switched once the pizza dough was ready and he rolled out small pieces and I filled them with the eggs and sausage and popped them into the oven. They came out perfectly this time! Woohoo! Third time's the charm!

In a matter of 45 minutes we were all pretty much said and done. Thank God for helpful husbands! The bread is still on its second rise but the dishes are in the dishwasher and most everything is cleaned up. It all worked out very nicely in the end. Glad I didn't let that mini panic attack take over in the midst of it all!

You can find my recipes for the things I cooked here:

Ketchup

Breakfast Pockets

Honey Wheat Bread

Do you have a hard time cooking multiple things at once and having them all work out time wise? What's your secret?

Till next time,
Catherine