How to follow a recipe

I'm sure this will surprise you, but I have trouble following a recipe.  It's not that I can't follow the recipe exactly.  I can.  I can make chocolate chip cookies that are to die for.  Seriously, you will eat one and come back begging for more.  I just made some for work at Christmas time and I was handing them out in the hallway to some people I did not work with directly.  A few minutes later we get a knock on our office door and it was one of the employees begging for another cookie.  And I follow the recipe on the back of the bag of chocolate chips exactly.  But I digress.

Most of the time recipes are a little difficult for me.  One of the problems is there are a lot of ingredients I don't like to eat, such as tomatoes, onions, peppers and the like and so when they are in a recipe I just substitute them with mushrooms.  Because I really, really like mushrooms.  It usually works, but salsa comes out a bit differently...not sure why.

Another problem is I have a hard time believing recipes.  I often think if a little of an ingredient is good, then more must be better.  Or I just skip ingredients I don't have on hand figuring they weren't that important anyhow.  Or the recipe jumps around on the page and I start making the next recipe down.  So I will be making brownies and then start adding in the ingredients for lasagne.

The last problem is I prefer not to use a recipe at all.  I have a theory that if you like everything you put into a dish, then it has to come out tasting yummy.  Which it actually often does, but sometimes it doesn't work so well.


Take today as an example.  It's my husbands birthday today (happy birthday sweetie...hope I am spoiling you enough).  He loves my chocolate chip cookies (see above).  And he loves chocolate ice cream.  And he might have mentioned that homemade ice cream sandwiches would be super yummy for his birthday.  And I agreed.  So I decided that is what I would make today.

No need to look up a recipe...I got the cookie part down, and I know how to buy chocolate ice cream so this was a no-brainer right?  I was so sure of myself I didn't even bother to look at Pinterest first.  I almost always at least look there and then do my own thing, but I was confidant.  So I made the cookies.  Now when I said I make incredibly yummy chocolate chip cookies, what I really meant is I am really good at getting out all the ingredients while my husband actually makes the cookies.  And then I am really good at spooning them on the pan to cook.

I forgot about that part today and they did not look like they always do when they come out of the oven.  In fact they were very small and thick, not large and kinda flat like usual.  Now remember I was using them to make ice cream sandwiches so small and thick was not the preferred type of cookie I was going for.  But I tasted a bunch to make sure they were edible and they still tasted wonderful so I would make it work.

I was running out of time so I let them mostly cool down and got out the ice cream.  I tried spooning some ice cream on the cookie and it wasn't going so well so I decided to melt the ice cream just a bit and stir it all up and then it plopped on the cookies very nicely.  I put on a second cookie, wrapped it in waxed paper and popped them all in the freezer.

I was so proud of myself for pulling this off and could not wait for dinner to be over to surprise my husband.

The time was here and I pulled out my masterpieces.  My son opened his up first and his comment was, "Is the freezer working?  Mine is all melted."  Well that is not what a master chef wants to hear when she unveils her amazing dessert.  I knew the freezer was working so something else had to be the matter.  When everyone had the same dilemma my sweet husband inquired if I had let the cookies cool all the way before I put them together.  Perhaps the ice cream had melted out of the center of the cookies.

Hmmm...well maybe I meant to make frozen chocolate chip cookies soaked in chocolate ice cream.  They were still super yummy, although incredibly messy.

Happy Belated Christmas

Every year for as long as I can remember I have sent out elaborately awesome Christmas cards.  When I only had one kid I lovingly hand stamped each one.

Then I had a couple more kids and started coming up with creatively cute cards that included I spy and crossword puzzles that intertwined tidbits from our year.

More recently as I've been in school I have been sending the typical photo card, but at least I designed them myself in photo shop and still included a Christmas letter.

Then came this year.  I had great intentions.  I was going to do a cute card based on my blog.  I had it all planned out...in my head.  I was going to do it right after Thanksgiving.  But I work now so it would have to happen on the weekend.  No problem, I had plenty of those before Christmas.  So the weekend after Thanksgiving we got to go on a short trip to visit friends in Florida.  Lots of fun, I even got a surprise graduation party, but no Christmas card creating.

The next weekend I got sick...horribly, terribly sick.  The lay on the couch and watch movies all weekend kind of sick.  I didn't even think about Christmas cards.

Next weekend...we had the kids, first time in 3 weeks we had the kids for the weekend and again fun was had instead of Christmas cards.

All of the sudden it was the weekend before Christmas.  When did this happen?  I still had presents to wrap and throughout the month I had been transforming my craft room into a cute future counseling office.  So, for the first time in as many years as I can remember...no Christmas cards were to be sent.  So instead I offer you this:

Happy Belated Christmas from our family to yours.

And as an extra bonus...here is what our Christmas letter might have said:

Dear Friends and Family,

Hope your year has been as fantastic as ours has been.  Because we are the most organized and put together family you have ever laid eyes upon we have accomplished much this year (if by much you mean our children are still alive and well and we haven't burned the house down).

Husband got promoted and now owns Home Depot.  I know it looks like he still works in the stores, but he doesn't like to brag and show off, so he pretends he is a supervisor in love with his job.  He has been working out this year and can pick up a small car and throw it across the street.  The neighbors for some reason haven't loved this, but I think it's handy for that annoying neighbor who loves to park right by the stop sign.

I started running this year and have broken all sorts of records (such as being able to run a mile faster than the fastest snail).  I graduated and now run a psych hospital (again no bragging so it appears I work there part time as a lowly therapist).  I continue to run her taxi service with help from loving husband.

Oldest daughter graduated high school and decided Texas was not big enough for her, she has taken over North Carolina.  She almost passed her drivers test on the first attempt, but decided driving was too mainstream.  Why drive when you can walk somewhere.  She too has picked up running and has broken some records herself (such as running a longer distance in a day than a turtle).

Son has become a pro-bowler this year.  He consistently breaks new records himself (such as getting a higher score than his little sister every.single.time.)  He also played a starring role in the high school musical, Annie.  He was in charge of scurrying up the stairs as they rolled them off the stage in order to lift up the curtains.  The show would not have happened if it had not been for him.

Youngest daughter has become an engineer this year.  She has built amazing towns, pools, amusements parks and the like (in Mine Craft).  She also was prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse due to her hours of training (in Mine Craft). 

The cats continue to puke and pee on the carpet in a talented manner.

We have traveled to many exotic destinations (and by exotic I mean we left our neighborhood).

So for the two of you who are not on Facebook and hadn't already seen pictures of all our amazing accomplishments, we hope you enjoyed reading about how fantastic we all are :P

Merry Belated Christmas!!  And may your new year be more focused than mine will be.