Slack Tea Thursday

I wanted to have chicken breast tenders tonight smothered in garlic cream sauce. With chips. Easy enough to get the frozen tenders on the way home already crumbed, grab some chips from the takeaway and bang up the garlic sauce in about three minutes when I walked in the door. (which is coincidentally about how long it would take to crisp up the chicken bits) Ten minute dinner is still slack if 7 minutes of that is actually procuring the dinner.  But then I had another thought. And that is what gets me into trouble every single  time. Thinking.

Tonight since I wasn't utterly exhausted as usual from THE WEEK AT WORK (work is always referred to in capitals at our place) , and because I wanted something that wasn't a promite sandwich or pickles on a plate and because we're saving money this month,  I decided to give my own shallot pancakes a go. I know I had these a couple of weeks ago but those were store bought from the Thai takeaway.Since then I've been stalking with  my best mate google looking for a recipe. And I finally found one that looked like the ones I get from Stuff You Round Thai so I was totally set.

And Slack Thursday is about keeping it real isn't it?  I mean I could take a picture of all the slack meals I ever have like Maccas, and pumpkin seeds  and breakfast cereal and just post them randomly pretending that's what I ate - but that would be a lie. This is Raw and Real Slack Tea Thursday.

So I made the flour and water dough, chopped shallots  (this took less than 5 minutes) and sat on my behind for 30 minutes waiting for the dough to do it's thing. There really is nothing slacker than flour and water and a handful of spring onions right? So far so good. I rolled out those discs, added some onions and rolled them back up . (This took only another 5 minutes) Then they went for a bath in hot bubbling oil. (As an aside: I'm actually really upset that when I die if they cut me open I wont be able to oooh and aah over the shocking state of my arteries but there isn't anything I can do about that - I know I'm supposed to care but about 99% of the time I don't)

And this is what I ended up with. Not exactly looking like the ones from Stuff You Round Thai but I was confident I had hit the jackpot. I could smell them and taste them even before I had my first bite. Ha ! Take that Thai restaurant. I don't need you anymore.

 

They were sublimely  yuk! Completely disgusting. An unmitigated disaster.  They were hard on the outside and doughy on the inside. I couldn't even taste the freaking shallots. And they weren't light and  melt in the mouth either. I was utterly deflated. And still dinner-less because there was no way I was going to eat them.

After I'd stopped uncontrollably sobbing I realised that like the greatest lemon cheesecake recipe of all time, which took me 10 years to find and about 83 cheesecake making sessions to perfect,  the shallot pancake recipe will materialise just when I've given up hope of ever finding it. It's cool. I survived before I knew of the existence of shallot pancakes (even if it was half a life)

And what have I learned from this experience? Trust your instincts. Sometimes on a higher level of consciousness your stomach knows your shallot pancakes are gonna suck , that's why it suggested chicken tenders  in the first place. And, you can have the dinner of your dreams if the shops are only two minutes away and you don't mind nipping out  at 7pm to get chicken tenders and cream and then coming home and cooking it all.

I am seriously considering re-naming Slack Tea Thursday to Thursday Tea Adventures. There was nothing slack about this dinner. Two dinners actually ,  if you count the disgusting dough balls.....

And now I'm off to do these dishes...and clean my benchtops and look for another shallot pancake recipe. And eat chocolate for dessert. Probably a whole freaking block of it.