Thursday, December 6, 2007

Help Wanted: Dishwasher Needed!

If there is one thing I hate to do more than follow a recipie, it is cleaning up the kitchen. The whole process annoys me: wiping down the counters, washing the dishes, putting the dishes away, and sweeping the floors. All of it seems so beneath me. Let me scrub windows over pots and pans! If only life were that sweet.

I hate washing dishes so much that I actually went out and bought a brand new set of dishes, silverware included, just so i wouldn't have to wash dishes. So now i have two sets of dishes. Twice the amount of work to do. The things I put myself through. Sometimes I wish there was a way to snap my fingers and *poof* the job is done! Some would say that is what a dishwasher is for but ah ha, someone still has to load and unload the beast! Unfortunately, I live in an apartment with a kitchen the size of a shoebox, where even if I wasn't against dishwashers, one would not fit.Yet again life is against me.

So my dream, my wish, my heart's desire? Someone please send me someone to wash my dishes! A red-headed cute male preferrably.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Is something burning?

This year I get to make the desserts! I was so excited. I planned my menu ( two cheesecakes, two fruit pies, and a cake), called a friend and made plans to take over her kitchen for the day. (My kitchen is roughly the size of a broom closet.) We had it all planned. I started with the cake. The directions said to let the butter come to room temperature and then cream. Well, who has time for that? I have a schedule. So I microwaved the butter and sugar together instead. After examining the soup-like mixture, I took the electrical hand mixer to it and happily started adding flour and eggs to it, following the recipe's directions. About 4 eggs later, I swore. I forgot to add the vanilla. I can toss that on top, I rationalized. Mixing away happily, I imagined my cake to be light,fluffy, beautiful, and scrumptious. I didn't notice the batter flying at high speeds outside of the bowl. Coming back to reality, I finished up my mixing, wiped down the outside of the bowl, table and chairs , then poured the batter into my pretty new 10 inch tube pan, and placed it carefully in the oven along side cheesecakes my friend had whipped together. Now is the hard part, the waiting.

About 20 minutes later, my friend asked me, "do you smell something burning?"
Me: "Nah...it's just the butter from the cheesecakes dripping onto the eye."
Friend: "Oh. Ok then."

Another five minutes pass. "Are you sure nothing is burning?"
Me: "Oh alright i will go check on it!" I sauntered into the kitchen and low and behold there was a distinct burnt sugar smell emanating from the oven. My friend was right behind me to say her "I told you so's". I opened the oven and we watched in amazement as this black cloud of smoke wafted upwards towards the ceiling and billow outwards towards the corners of her kitchen.

"Wow," we both said in between eye-watering coughs. "Smoke really does billow."

Wiping our eyes we laughed as we noticed the little flames dancing at the bottom of the oven. "Whoops, " I said, "I guess something was burning."

The problem: I had placed the pan on the top rack too close to the burner.

The solution: I lowered the rack as far as it could go, took a knife and cut off the top layer of the cake placed it back into the oven and let the cake finish baking.

The result: A yummy , but short , pound cake.

Come into the kitchen!

Hello everybody and welcome to my kitchen. I have to warn you my kitchen is an interesting spot, you never know what you will find inside my cupboards or cooking on the stove top. Fell free to take a peek, you never know you may find a goodie somewhere.

But first let me tell you a little something about myself. I have a love hate relationship with my kitchen. I love cooking however I hate following a recipe, I prefer to make up my own as I go. This has resulted into some interesting mishaps I have experienced along the way. Every time I step into my kitchen an adventure occurs mainly because of my impatience. Nevertheless, I have managed to feed myself and others over the years despite this mishaps and learned a lot about myself too along the way. So come on in, grab a spoon, lift a lid, have a taste Bon Appettite!