Culinary Misfortunes and the Case of the Missing Meat

This is not my meat.

So I just wanted to write about the amusement I found in the kitchen this evening. Tomorrow, of course, is the great cookie exchange and soup & salad potluck lowdown at the office. And while I need three dozen cookies like I need an extra cottage-cheese filled leg, I decided I would participate as the newbie still trying to find my way into the "in" crowd. (I'm not even sure what that really means, but you know... when you're new there are certain things you should do.) ANYWAY. So after a little recipe searching, I decided I'd make the strawberry pretzel salad, some peppermint fudge, and some cake batter lemon puff cookies. And while this menu appears impressive, I was pleased with what appeared to be an easy-go of ingredients and kitchen time. Now don't get me wrong, I do love to cook... but on weeknights the last thing I want to do is stand over a stove all night. Long story short, what should have been a roster of the 30-minute meals type fame actually took several hours! It was a bit of a disaster. I forgot to put the peppermint exract in the fudge (although I did remember the crumbled stuff for the top), the batter for the cookies was lumpy, and the 10-minute crust on the pretzel salad actually took about 40 minutes, and took several hours to make because of its three layers! Sheesh. I mean, I can mince, parboil, and broil with the best of them, but this was a bit ridiculous. Lucky for me, everything seemed to turn out just fine. So much for multi-tasking in the kitchen, I guess. Like a friend and I recently discussed, in order for 30-minute meals to truly take 30 minutes, you apparently need to chop, peel, and organize all that you'll use in little baggies ahead of time so everything is ready to go. Yeah right.

I should also add that I attempted to make dinner, as well. I had thawed what I had thought was this fabulous organic beef roast, but when I took it out of the package it was in, it turned out to be chuck steak (and was clearly labeled as such on the package.) Don't ask me how a person can mistake these two things, but it happened. Does anyone know what to do with a chuck steak? Anyway, before I decided what I'd try to make, I ran upstairs to pee and change out of my work clothes. While I was up there, I had this uneasy feeling that the dogs seemed awfully quiet. Sure enough, after being up there less than five minutes, I go back down, and all that's left of one of the long steak meatflaps is a smeary raw meat puddle of where the steak had once sat on its plate. Mona (naughty girl!) did her usual counter-surfing and snatched that steak so fast... when I found her she was smacking her lips, apparently quite satisfied with the outcome of her mission. I was really ticked, then laughed at how funny it actually was, and I pictured her dragging this thing off the counter. At this point, I'm a little afraid at what I might find either
a) on our floor sometime tonight or tomorrow morning, or b) frozen on the lawn tomorrow. Either way it won't be pretty. After chasing the stuff I was accidentally dropping on the floor while I cooked all night, both dogs have bellies full of raw meat, peppermint bits and wood chunks from the log pile. Is it safe to give a dog Imodiun?? Or Drain-O?