Not all meals have happy endings.....

I BOMBED it tonight. Yes, that is right. I decided to be completely honest and not just write about the good, but the bad as well. Multi tasking can be a wonderful thing, but not all the time!!! I made pork loin medallions---I usually sear pork on both sides quickly and then simmer on low, that way they do not dry out. I thought I turned the knob down to med low but Saul was flopping around in the bath tub and called for me, so it stayed on med high. They weren't burnt, but lets say that they were a tad on the dry side (understatement of the year). Then I thought instead of just steamed carrots I would make this recipe that I made at Christmas last year. I started the recipe and then found out that it was a totally different recipe. It was not very good, at all. But the plain old buttered noodles turned out. Of course how on earth do you mess up buttered noodles? So in the world of kitchen fairy tales, this one had a unhappy and unsatisfactory ending. And I am hungry. I want CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES, but alas I have taken an oath to stay away from them for a month. Only 2 weeks left of my self induced cookie fast. I hope I can make it. In the epic words of Scarlet O'Hara, Tomorrow is another day!

Cookies NEED eggs

Jeff asked me to bake some cookies after dinner last night. I had found a recipe for Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies on my friend's family recipe blog, and he agreed that they sounded delicious.

So, I mixed them all up, and popped the first dozen in the oven. Then I started to clean up and realized there was no egg shell on my counter.

Ooops! I had forgotten to add the egg.

While the first dozen was baking, I had already put the next dozen on the pan--ready to put in the oven. After a minute or so of hemming and hawing (is it OK to mix in the egg after the chocolate chips have been stirred in? what effect will no egg have? will the egg mix properly after the fact?), I decided to toss the dough of the 12 uncooked cookies back in the bowl, and go ahead and try to still mix in the forgotten egg.

Turns out, cookies really do need eggs. The first dozen tasted OK, but they didn't stick together very well.



And they didn't flatten as they should have.


We were left with very thick, dry, crumbly cookies.

Thankfully the remaining 2 1/2 dozen were delicious! Moist, chewy! I love the flavor combination of the peanut butter and chocolate chips.

If you're wondering what an egg exactly does in cookies, check out this website that I found this morning. It answers this very question plus gives more great information about the egg.

P.S. Is forgetting eggs a pattern? I also forgot eggs when making pancakes back in 2006. Perhaps since it was more than two years ago, it's not a pattern. Let's hope.

Egg-less pancakes...Oops!

Yesterday morning, I thought it would be nice to make some pancakes for breakfast for our little visitor. Nathan was visiting us for the weekend. Nathan is my stepson; he is 7 years old.

Unfortunately, I kept getting distracted by him and by Jeff that I accidentally forgot to crack those eggs into the batter before having Nathan mix it all together. When I was putting them on the griddle, the batter seemed a little thick. I just added some water to help the consistency.

I didn't really think too much about it until an hour or two later. I don't know why I was thinking about the pancakes again, but I just couldn't visualize cracking the eggs. That's when it occurred to me that I had forgotten them. Oops!!

Turns out...maybe the pancakes didn't really NEED the eggs! They tasted just normal to me. In fact...they were delicious.

Still, next time I'll try to remember to add 'em.