My husband works as a CSR at a call center and if his team (group of people supervised by a team leader) is doing really good they let them have an hour or two off the phones to have a pot-lock. Today is the 3rd time that I've made something. The first time I made my homemade mac-n-cheese and they of course loved it. The next time I made my baked spaghetti and they loved it. So in the week or so leading up to this I've been trying to decide what to make and my husband tells me that they were requesting the baked spaghetti.
So today I went in with an hour and a half with dirty dishes from last night. (I wash my dishes before making dinner each day) so once the ones I needed were done I started the water and left it to come to a boil while I browned my sausage. Once that was done I added the tomato sauce, seasoned it, and left it to simmer. Meanwhile I added the noodles (twice what I would use for an 8X8) and while those boiled I mixed up the creamy sauce for the noodles. By then I was running a little now on time if I was going to have to bake the egg in this so I left it out and added a little milk to cover for the moisture of the egg missing.
When the noodles were soft and done I drained them and realized this wasn't going to be enough. I went ahead and mixed them in with the creamy sauce and it barely came halfway up the sides of my 13X9. So I decided to axe the baking time altogether and turned on the broiler. I refilled the pan and brought it to a boil then threw in the same amount of noodles and mixed up more creamy sauce the same way.
I set the already made noodle mixture in the oven to keep it warm while the other half cooked and it got a little dried out. So once the noodles were cooked, drained, and mixed I poured it on top of the other noodles and poured the now over simmered tomato sauce/meat over the noodles and covered it with as much cheese as I felt I could get away with to cover the fact that there wasn't much sauce. Then I broiled it to melt the cheese and make it look like it baked in the oven. Then I wrapped it in foil and brought it to my husband.
Of course I didn't tell him the struggle I had making it and how it probably wasn't going to be good. But I felt like I let everyone down. My husband told me they cheered when he brought in the pan and I just felt bad because it hadn't come out the same way as last time and they would be expecting good food and what I sent was just a compilation of failures and mistakes.
However he texted just recently and said that the newbies on the team (who weren't there last time) all said it was really good and they didn't even know who had brought it. (yes I know I just said they cheered, but the thing about working at a call center is that you don't always get off the phone right when your break starts. So these people were late into the room).
What I've learned from this is to never make the same thing twice. If they know what it tasted like the first time they will expect it the second time around. So next pot-lock I'm making anything else. Anything else at all.
