if you can't stand the heat...

...get the hell out of the kitchen and FAST!

That's a little lesson I learned last night while trying to "deep fry" some chicken. I meant to go grocery shopping yesterday morning after work, but it was just too cold, and all I wanted was to go home, turn the heater up, and snuggle up in my amazing bed and sleep. So that's what I did. Then I planned to go grocery shopping last night, but my sister called and we ended up talking for almost two hours, which meant I wouldn't have time to hit the grocery before getting ready for work.

That's ok, I thought, I still have lots of frozen stuff in my freezer that I can cook.

Dun dun dun...

So, one of the things in my freezer was a bag of frozen, breaded chicken that you are supposed to deep fry. Now, let me explain what this meant for me. First, I have never deep fried anything myself before. Second, I don't own a deep fryer. These two things usually wouldn't be a problem; whenever I try cooking something new, I head to the trusty ol' internet to Google step-by-step instructions. I am an intense rules-follower in new situations (can you imagine what kind of a mother I'll probably be someday?).

But last night, for some unknown reason, I decided to do something totally uncharacteristic and just wing it. (Chicken wing it! Ahhh haha...lame joke, I know.)

Here's what MY step-by-step instructions would have looked like last night had I written them down:

Step 1 - Cut a hole in a box...

No, just kidding. That's just the first thing that came to my mind as soon as I typed "Step 1."

Step 1 - Get out a small frying pan, put it on the stove, and turn the stove up to about 6.

Step 2 - Get out your bottle of vegetable oil and pour it into the pan. Don't worry about measuring it out in measuring cups or anything; just pour it in till the pan is about half full.

Step 3 - Let the oil heat up, uncovered, while you put the chicken in the microwave to defrost (this will take about 7 minutes).

Step 4 - Once the chicken is thawed out, stick a fork in it and just dump it in the pan of hot oil. Don't be shy; just go ahead and toss it in there.

FWOOOOOSH!!!

Seething hot oil frothed up and spattered all over the kitchen as soon as that chicken hit the pan. I actually jumped about five feet out of the way and then just watched as hot vegetable oil covered the surface of the stove. I edged back over to turn the burner down, and I could feel little airborne drops of oil hitting my arms and face; it felt like tiny pins pricking me all over. Grabbing a sponge, I tried to wipe up the oil from the stove top, but I mean, it's oil, so it didn't really feel like soaking up into the sponge. Instead, it just spread itself all around and dripped onto the floor.

I went to get a towel to wipe everything up, and slid across the floor (oil + tile = slippery situation), so then I had to wipe off my bare feet AND the floor before stepping back onto the tiles.

Holy crap.

By now, the chicken is most definitely fried, and just as greasy as can be. I was trying to figure out what to do next, when an image popped into my head of what my mom and dad did when they were frying fish: put the fried pieces on a paper towel to soak up the extra oil.

But because I haven't been to the grocery, I am out of paper towel.

So the fried, oily chicken just goes onto a plate where it sits in its own oily little puddle of sad little dinner disaster.

I decide to put the chicken on some lettuce and smother it with honey mustard dressing, hoping that the lettuce will soak up the oil and the honey mustard will give it a flavor other than grease.

Nnnope. It was not very tasty.

So I think I'll stick to what I know for now: Hamburger Helper, eggs and French toast, quesadillas, and anything I can fit into a George Foreman grill.

Until I get a deep fryer and learn how to use it.