"Some Sweet Day We'll Be Together"

Dear Thanksgiving,

I wish we could be better friends. I know that you're all about friendship, family and bounty, but I work retail. Right now all you are to me are those fleeting hours of sleep I get before Black Friday.

I tried to make you a pie,( you know, to turn things around) but it didn't really turn out. And it wasn't a very pleasant process either, I sort of lost my kitchen timer and screamed at the pie crust. Yeah.

But it's okay, I have high hopes for our relationship after I graduate school and become a night baker. We will turkey it up hardcore, harass everyone into eating only our food, and eat until our pants pop. I promise.

For now though, I have big plans for your buddy Christmas (I'm off that day, high five!). He's right around the corner and just as full of recipes to try out, mess up and, savor.

So...thanks anyway,
Mags.

     












Bacon Sweet Potato Pie
Originally From Food Network Magazine, but I'm guessing they disowned it because I can't find it anywhere

If you like the idea of this recipe, just use your favorite sweet potato pie recipe, swap out the vanilla extract for bourbon and add a few sprinkles of diced cooked bacon on the top.

"Looking For The Campfire Light" or "Eating The Oatmeal"

The savory world is being mean to me. I'm trying to stay true to my word backflip into the healthy, salty, green and leafy but I haven't quite got it down.I miss my comfort zone, I miss baking and I NEED A BROWNIE STAT!

The thing about baking, and doing it well is that once you get cozy you start to really know what does what, and why this is in there and after a point you can just eyeball a recipe and figure out if it's going to be worth your time.

My problem with salty stuff is I have no radar ( at least not yet) for jolopy recipes. Honestly sometimes I think I'm actually a magnet for duds. Like the recipe I tried today from Food Network Magazine, I should have known just from looking at it that even though it said including meat in the soup was optional, it totally wasn't. But instead I was charmed by the idea of a bean-noodle-kale soup and kept on trucking even though
my nose told me that nothing was going on in there.  Always trust the nose.

The upside is that is wasn't nasty or anything, just sort of boring and meh, and it's relatively veggie loaded and healthy so even though I will be eating bison for diner for the next year it shouldn't do too much damage.

Hopefully one day I'll look back on this post a seasoned skillet of a cook and laugh at myself (while eating Coq au Vin).

"Kitchen Disasters" or "There's No Use Crying Over Split Cake"

I pride myself on being an honest person. If you want to hear the truth no matter how awful you can always trust that I'll tell it to you. So, in demonstration of my shining honesty, I show you this. 

Remember when I said I was waiting for the other shoe to drop with all this experimentation success?  Well here we are.

I won't bother telling you what it was supposed to be (in case I later find a way to fix it). Honestly I think was too busy jammin to Maroon 5 to really give this cake the attention it deserved but then again I've always had trouble with cakes for some reason ( lack of patience I think).

The funny thing is yesterday I finally had pictures/recipes that were good enough to be accepted by Tastespotting ( I was totally jazzed!Dancing even) but now a day later not only did I make a cake that looks like it weathered an earthquake but I took terrible pictures of it too (all gross and grainy).

Yuck!

I even tried in vain to whip up a second version that turned out so terrible I spat it into the trash. I'm not too disheartened though, it's kind of funny even. Because really, have you ever seen a more pathetic looking cake in your life? It reminds me of the birthday cake Haggrid brought Harry only a furry giant didn't sit on it.

I've even mildly considered leaving the house so I could come back, "discover it" and accuse my boyfriend of smashing the cake while I was gone. "What have you DONE?!?" Should I go for it? I mean it's one way to kill an afternoon...

What? You've got to laugh to keep from crying.

What is your most awful kitchen disaster?