I Openly Admit That I Can't Cook - How NOT To Cook Plantains

I can't cook. If there was a site called Cookit, I'd have a negative reputation and be the champion of the #punchline community. The extent of my culinary talents are boiling and frying eggs, and cooking meat in a pan to the point I can smell it just starting to burn. I also have no interest in following a recipe and it shows. As other vital background, I usually don't read instructions because, well, I'm stubborn.

I've always wanted to try to make plantain chips for a homemade snack. There's just something about them (when made right), that leaves me wanting more. After years of thinking of getting some to prepare, and regularly forgetting, a 3 for $2 sale caught my eye yesterday at the grocery store...so I went for it! Baby steps.

I bought 3 of different ripeness levels to make sure I couldn't mess that part up. I figured I'd screw the first one up anyway, so I started with the ripest one. The picture above was the least ripe one, an essential detail. This was also officially my first food picture on social media. It's a big day for me...

I naturally refused to look up any instructions and tried to rely on my memory of watching someone frying them at a small Caribbean joint. After opening and slicing the first plantain with ease (it was fun and I felt like I was on a tropical vacation), I let it simmer in olive oil for a while. I didn't know how it'd cook or how thin to make the slices, but how hard could it be? I gave it a few minutes on medium heat and flipped all of those amazing little slices over. So far so good. My mouth was watering as I knew I was just a few minutes away from checking off a small item on my bucket list.

Well, I went to browse around on Steemit to pass the time and went back to the stove when I was sure enough time had gone by to give me my first delicious plantain snack. Well, it was no surprise that the first plantain got the last laugh.

Here was my first attempt... CHARCOAL! It was the same on both sides. What a disaster.

No surprise. After cursing to myself once, I found solace in knowing I had two more, and a jump start with the hot olive oil. After slicing them thinner this time, I took a walk on the wild side with some sea salt, and felt I was finally on the right path.

Instead of getting distracted by Steemit, I decided to take a few pictures to make a post that was far from my norm. The second and third batches came out great, and I bought some more at the grocery store after to make another batch tomorrow.

Thank you for sharing in this momentous accomplishment, where I feel that I really learned a lot about what I can do when I put $2 and my mind to something in the kitchen.

El fin.

@steemmatt