Tales from the Kitchen

I have been having an intersting time in the kitchen lately. A few weeks ago, I tried to make Paula Dean's ooey-gooey butter cake from the Food Network. It was supposed to bake for 30-40 minutes. After 75 minutes, the top was still raw and liquid and the bottom was burnt. Disaster.

Then, last week I made homemade crab ragoons for poker. They were a success, but they may be what has led to my hive outbreak. After 7 days of scratching and itching I went to the doctor on Saturday. He said they will probably never know what happened, but since I ate seafood the day I got them, I may have developed a sudden seafood allergy! This is horrible, as seafood is my absolute favorite and is actually something I eat that is healthy. The ironic thing is that I was given a gift card to Red Lobster, and Diane and I were going to go spend it this weekend, but now I have to lay of seafood for a few weeks, so I had to call her and cancel.

Thursday night I made 3 pounds of macaroni salad for Stein's Free Food Friday. I preplanned and bought all my ingredients except sugar. I always have sugar, right? Apparently not. At 7:30 pm I had two pots of pasta boiling away on the stove. Ryan and I were both in our pj's and he was swinging while I chopped carrots, and I was covered head to toe in big blotchy hives. I needed at least 4 cups of sugar. I open the canister, and viola! I have 1/4 cup. Needless to say, I couldn't exactly rush out to the store. So, I "womped" it. I found a canister of sugar packets, and used about 50 sugar packets. It takes a long time to open that many packets! Then I found 1/4 can of Splenda, so I dumped that in. Then I finished it off with about 20 Equal packets. Suprisingly, it turned out well and was a success. Apparently, I am now famous in the Newton bar scene for macaroni salad. Whatever that's worth.

Yesterday I made a coffee cake. I always make it in a 9 x 13, but this time I decided to make it in a Bundt pan like the recipe says. I got the first layer of batter in the ban, then sprinkled it with the cinnamon/brown sugar/butter crumbles, then started to put the rest of the batter in. At this point, I realized that I forgot to put the 4 eggs in. I had noticed that the batter was awfully thick. So I scraped off the crumbles, dumped the batter back into the bowl and beat in the eggs, then put it back in the pan. So much for having a distinct brown sugar layer! Then, I baked it the correct amount of time, and it was nice and brown on the top. The recipe said to flip it over immediately, so I did. Well it turns out that the bottom was still raw, so when I flipped it over, the batter started gushing. So, I quick slammed the bundt pan on it, flipped it back over, and threw it in the oven and baked it some more. It turned out pretty well, but was kind of crusty on the outside.

I am a good cook. Really. I think I have two problems - my oven isn't heating exactly right and I lost two many brain cells during pregnancy!

Well, got to run, it is now 6:40 am, and time to wake Ryan back up. He woke up early - 5 am, so he and I have been ready for work since 6 am, but daycare doesn't open until 7 am. Luckily, he fell asleep in his swing so I could blog.