Recipe for Crap in a Pan

Adapted from 36-Hour Skillets

by Rachel Ray*

(for Robin, who asked for it)

Ingredients:

2 Partially Eaten Apples found lying on kitchen table and/or counter

1 Frozen, partially thawed lb. Bacon

3 Overflowing tsp. brown sugar from a plastic teaspoon found randomly

 lying on the counter by the microwave

Glop or 2 of Maple Syrup

1. Cut up apples; fend off children trying to eat them by alternating threats of appendage loss with statements like, "I have to go over to the sink for a minute and I had best not return to find any little mouths munching my apples."
2. Since bacon is still half frozen, attempt to cut straight through the bag with kitchen scissors so there's no chance of the bacon sliming apart while you're trying to get a nice even cut.
3. When this approach fails, remove bacon from packaging, hold it over pan containing remaining apple pieces, and cut through bacon itself (still with cheap kitchen scissors) hopefully with minimal sliming. All the while, in the back of your mind, contemplate the nice sharp pair of meat scissors sitting clean and ready on the other side of the room, that you are to lazy to walk over to because doing so will inevitably mean washing up an extra pair of scissors.
4. Glop in sugar and maple syrup, taking care not to actually measure out any specific amount of syrup as this will dirty a measuring cup which will then have to be cleaned.
5. Cover pan and cook for about 10 minutes.  
6. Upon lifting the lid, vaguely recall (with help of irritatingly accurate husband) that you were supposed to cook the bacon BEFORE putting in the apples. Remember that you thought of that when you were putting the apples in the pan to begin with but decided against it because you were too lazy to remove the apples from the pan and if you did remove them you'd have no cutting board to put them on in the meantime because you had gotten a little bacon slime on the apple cutting board, thus converting it to the bacon cutting board, causing you to have to retrieve and inevitably wash a whole new cutting board for the apples. And who wants to go through all that when you can just tell your kids they have to eat it regardless of what it tastes like anyway? Plus, come on, it's apples & bacon. How bad can it be?
7. Put husband in charge of draining the pan since it's his fault you couldn't drain it earlier when you wanted to because he stood in front of the sink too long. When he attempts to drain it his way (using a strainer) bark at him that he's doing it all wrong and he should drain it by holding the lid on and letting the liquid drain out through the infinitesimally minute space between the pot and its lid - you guessed it - so that you don't have waste that valuable second or two washing the strainer. 
8. Continue cooking with lid off for 30 or so more minutes because you've become distracted by some combination of picking up toys, hanging Christmas tree ornaments, and the Internet.
9. Return to find that there's been an unauthorized discontinuation of cooking.
10. Have following conversation with husband:
    Wha... It says OFF! Who turned off my pan?!
    "I did."
    WHY?
    "I thought it was done."
    Why would you think it was done?!
    "I dunno. It kind of looked done. And it has been cooking for over 40 minutes."
    I KNOW it has! (I didn't know.) It takes that long to come to crappy perfection!
11. Turn pan back on. Cook for another minute or two while contemplating the fact that it does kind of look done.
12. Try a bite. If it tastes edible, scoop some out for the kids, using a paper towel to blot off extraneous bacon grease.
13. Keep cooking the rest of it, hoping the bacon will get a bit crispier. Get distracted again.
14. Return 5 or less minutes later to find a good half of it burned.
15. Spin triumphantly towards the table, announcing, hands on hips, "Well you can't say the bacon isn't crispy now!"
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    *Nah, she seems like a nice lady. Let's not blame this on her.