TIME IN THE KITCHEN

We've had some hits and some misses in the kitchen over the last couple months, and some upcoming adventures, and thought I'd share them with you.  Let's start off by going back to October.  I offered to make some cakes for our church's Harvest Festival cake walk.  Four cakes, to be exact.  The first was super simple and inspired by the divided house I live in, a little M&M nod to both Beaver and Duck fans.

The second was equally simple and completely random, a tic tac toe game.

Neither were particularly amazing, but I was content with how they turned out.  Actually, I kinda loved the tic tac toe one.  Next up was a repeat of a cake I made for Naomi's birthday four years earlier, an underwater scene.  Here's the one I made for Naomi, which I loved.

Here's the one I made for church.  I don't think it turned out as well, thanks in part to the fact our goldfish crackers got misplaced and I had to use a bunch of giant gummy fish, and also because the fruit roll-up seaweed kept tearing, but it was fine.

Naomi actually ended up winning the underwater cake.  Ha!

So, one cake I loved, two that I liked ... then came the cake of humility.  This was another birthday cake repeat, the one I'd made for Naomi three years earlier.  Here's the one I made for her birthday.

Not perfect, but not too shabby for a rookie mom who only decorates cakes when her kids have birthdays. I thought it would be a fun cake to bring to the Harvest Festival, so I attempted to make it again.

Problem #1 - The cake tore badly when being removed from the pan, which made cutting it into the shape of Hello Kitty's head fairly difficult.

Solution #1 -  I would just leave the cake whole and outline the shape of the head, then frost the background pink.

Problem #2 - Crumbs were flaking off all over the place and mixing in with the frosting.

Solution #2 - None.  Yes, I know you can do a crumb coat, but I've never needed to before and by the time I realized the crumbs were going to be a huge problem it was too late in the game to do anything about it.

Problem #3 - The outline of the head was not turning out well and Hello Kitty's face was misshapen.

Solution #3 - None.  I tried fixing things with toothpicks, but it didn't help.

Problem #4 - The whiskers were way too big and sticking out too straight.

Solution #4 - None.  By the time I realized how over-sized they were and how wrong the angles were, they were stuck on well and just pulled up more crumbs and frosting when I tried to gently remove them.

Problem #5 - The left ear was really torn up and there were tons of crumbs in the white frosting.

Solution #5 - Cover the mess with Hello Kitty's bow.

Problem #6 - The bow was on the wrong side of Hello Kitty's face.

Solution #6 - None.

Problem #7 - The frosting turned out neon pink.

Solution #7 - None.

May I present the cake of humility.

Yes, both Hello Kitty cakes were, in fact, made by the same person.  Ay yi yi!

I almost didn't take it.  I wasn't sure which was worse, not bringing as many cakes as I committed to or punishing someone by sending them home with this cake as a prize.  I ended up taking it and I feel like I owe the winner an apology.  Hopefully it tasted good.

Along came December and I made some of my favorite cookies, ones I only make between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Big, soft, ginger cookies.  Little pillows of cakey goodness that taste like molasses and ginger.  I even doubled the batch, as I thought it would be great to send some with Tim to the school he was subbing at the next morning.  But something went wrong.  Very wrong.  And I have no idea what.  What I do know is that there were no pillows of anything.

There was goo.  Flat goo.

Flat goo that spread all over the cookie sheet. One big mass of goo.

I threw the rest of the dough away and never tried another batch.  I may need therapy for the missed opportunity to eat these cookies in 2013.  Or I may need to just make them on some random day and hope they turn out well.  We'll see.

Enough of the baking hits and misses.  Let's move on to vegetables.  I actually have a success story here.

Back in November I asked on Facebook for suggestions of a veggie to bring for Thanksgiving dinner.  I ended up making broccoli and bacon salad, but a bunch of people suggested roasted brussels sprouts.  I haven't had brussels sprouts since I was a kid and I remember not being much of a fan.  However, over the last year or two we've discovered how much we love roasted veggies, even when we already liked the steamed version.  Since so many people suggested it, I figured I'd give them another chance.  We've tried two different roasting recipes in the last few weeks, neither of which I've gotten around to posting yet, and have learned that we really like roasted brussels sprouts.  I'm so glad people suggested them back in November!  Even though I didn't make them for Thanksgiving, the encouragement to try a food I'd kinda forgotten about it resulted in a new veggie to keep on our menu rotation.  Here are the ones we inhaled last night.

Last, but not least, our upcoming kitchen adventures.

I only took two kids, Silas and Devon, shopping with me the other day and each asked if they could get a specific thing to try.  I agreed, with two conditions.  First, they are each totally responsible for cooking the item they chose.  Second, we all get to (or have to, as the case may be) try a sample of their item after they cook it.  Devon chose a cactus leaf.  Silas chose eggplant.

Silas is now ranked lowest on my "favorite child" list.

Kidding.

I don't actually have a list.  But if I did ...

As much as I detest eggplant and as little as I know about cactus leaves, I'm actually looking forward to seeing what they make out of these two produce items.  It will be interesting, if not tasty

And with that, I'm going to go grab a handful of dry roasted almonds.  No decorating.  No baking.  No list of ingredients.  No purple rubber.  Just an easy, tasty, healthy snack.