Slowly, slowly, slowly ...

The Cookbook: The Biggest Book of Slow Cooker Recipes Volume 2
                               put out by Better Homes & Gardens

The Recipe: Rice-Stuffed Peppers

The Misadventure: Yes, I picked another recipe that involves rice. And a totally new type of rice at that: converted rice. But this time I knew what I was getting myself into. At least as far as that one ingredient was concerned. It also called for  frozen green soybeans, a.k.a. edamame. The only frozen green soybeans I could find were in pods. So I bought them.

As I started preparations for the stuffed peppers, which the book said would take about 25 minutes, I opened the bag of edamame and realized that I definitely did not want the soybeans still in the pods.

 Well, I thought, I will just have to get the beans out of the pods. Simple enough. After all, I only need a cup and a half. Besides, I'll have all this free time while the rice is cooking!

So I started the rice and grabbed a knife to cut into the edamame pods. It turned out to be not so easy since, of course, they were frozen. I set the knife down and grabbed the kitchen scissors thinking that would be easier.

Not so much. But I struggled with it for a little while, getting one bean out at a time. I soon realized it was going to take me forever to fill only a cup and a half. I needed a better method. So I grabbed a small pot, filled it with hot water from the faucet and dumped some of the pods in. I took one out and cut into it. Much easier! Unfortunately, it took the whole bag of edamame and 35 minutes to complete the task. That put me 10 minutes over the estimated prep time. And I still had other preparations to make, so all in all it took me one hour to get the peppers ready to put in the slow cooker. Twice as long as it should have taken. But that seems to be pretty normal for me. And it did get done so that's a plus! Not to mention I got to forget about it for the next 3 hours. That was pretty nice.

What have I learned from this experience? Never buy soybeans still in the pods. And if the recipe calls for it that way, pick a different recipe because they didn't look very good.