Cooking a really great meal doesn't have to be complicated. Sure, binge-watching Chopped has us all convinced we need vaccuum sealers, ice cream machines and an anti-griddle, but some of the best recipes in the world are actually just a few really good ingredients put together simply. Like guacamole! Yeah, you can get fancy on it but a classic recipe really only calls for avocado, tomato, onion, salt and lime juice. It's so simple that it's almost impossible to screw it up.
Almost.
One of the biggest downfalls of simple foods is how easy it can be to screw it up. Imagine picking up sugar instead of salt for that guac recipe. Now you've got an onion and avocado dessert paste that nobody wants. My mom has salted her coffee and sugared her eggs more times than I can count. And as a Puerto Rican, I can assure you messing up the rice might as well be the end of any meal. It won't matter how good anything else is.
One reddit user asked:
What is an easy way to f*ck up a simple meal?
Screwing up the rice was one of the first answers - so I feel pretty culinarily vindicated right now. Here's that answer, along with quite a few other kitchen horror stories. Long story short: check your labels, check your heat, read the directions and try to stay at least KIND OF sober. Cooking usually involves knives and fires, after all.