Good thing I had extras

Ever start making something and realize the universe REALLY doesn't want you to do that? Everything was going wrong with my baking last night, from discovering that 3c of flour is a lot - like, most of a bag of flour lot - or breaking the yolk while separating the eggs or running out of vanilla extract while pouring it or discovering the second bag of brown sugar was hard as a rock. I still can't believe I didn't spill the vanilla extract while fumbling for the second bottle and the only thing that did spill was a dusting of flour.

I was baking chocolate chip cookies as a hostess gift for a friend, in large part because she and I had a long discussion about home baked cookies. I was horrified that she'd bought some generic brand of chocolate chip cookies - why not bake them, since they're so easy! Well, now I know: they are easy, but time consuming, between waiting for all 5 batches to come out of the oven (did I mention 3c of flour is a lot?) and washing the mixer. It would've been faster if I had an additional pair of baking sheets, but the end product, while filling the description of large chewy cookie, didn't thrill me enough to go through all that labor. I'm not convinced I could learn to make them so much better than preservative-laden store bought that I should go through the effort. Read More......

Gonna need a bigger lunch box

You know your lunch has jumped the shark when you find yourself packing a tray for the toaster oven to prepare it in the pantry.

On the other hand, my tacos were delicious and cheered me up immensely. Read More......