Flops Turned Foodlicious!

I recently had some mishaps in the kitchen arena. Now being a bit of a perfectionist, little things can seem like MAJOR things. The other night I decided to make dinner for my family. We have this recipe for Spinach Pizza. It is delicious. Granted I was out in service all day and forgot to take the dough out to thaw until after 4pm that day. Bread normally takes hour to thaw(if frozen) and rise. So the back of the package suggests a quick defrost method using the microwave. Now microwaves are good for many things, however do not defrost dough in it no matter what the package says! It starts to cook the ends of the dough and will not let it rise. I take it out and of course do the finger poke test. Yikes! The edges were tough and cracked. Oh well I thought. I will let it sit until 5pm and let it rise. Well, rise it did not...boo hoo! So I start cooking the sausage, spinach, and grating cheese. I roll out this interesting half cooked dough as much as it will go. It is ripping and breaking because it's already partially cooked. However, I became creative and used a little camouflaging. The parts of the raw dough I wrapped around the yucky parts. The oven worked it's magic! It was delicious and I even had time to make a healthy and colorful salad. I told my family what had happened and they would have been none the wiser had I withheld that information about my microwaved and mutilated dough.



Then last night I come home from work and begin preparing my Cafe au Lait Cheesecake that I bragged about (and posted pictures about) until I was asked to make it for our congregation lunch(today). Unbeknownst to me, we have about 3 different sizes of spring form pans. So I pull out the first one I see, thinking I am so cool because this time it took me lickety split time to prepare this cheesecake. I pour the first layer(the thought crosses my mind that it is too thin) but I bake it anyway. The second layer goes on and I bake it despite my strange feeling about the way it looks. It has to cool for about 30 minutes and when I pull the outside part of the pan off, no joke it's about 1.5 inches thick!!! WHAT!? I look at my mom and say OH NO! What happened!? My mom informed me that we have many sizes and I obviously used the wrong one. It's a good thing I've had years to calm down my crazy and not throw it out and start over. Granted, I was still worried about it, but I drizzled some chocolate over the top and lo and behold...it was a hit. The friends enjoyed it and although it wasn't what I had expected, it filled bellies and gave smiles and that is all I can ask for.

So...I have learned 2 things: 1. Perfection holds no ground in the kitchen because the unexpected often makes the best meals (like last night's creation of everything but the kitchen sink grilled chicken salad). 2. Don't tell everyone that you messed up and used the wrong pan because 9/10 times they have no idea what it was supposed to be like, don't care that it isn't perfect and are just happy to have something yummy to satisfy their sweet tooth/insatiable hunger. I'm really enjoying cooking because even when you mess up the bread, the cake isn't exactly right, the rice is undercooked...etc., etc., there is usually something salvageable about it and lesson learned for next time! :D

Oh and just a little side note...cutting veggies, fruits, or whatever strikes your fancy is a great way to get rid of stress. I recently discovered that being a sous chef would not be so bad. It is a creative way to try new ways of preparing ingredients for main dishes, how you can slice, dice, chop, cut, chiffonade items, get lost in your own little world and just think about the thoughts of the day. I can even pray or just plain ignore people with the excuse that "I'll cut myself if I lose my concentration, this is a very sharp knife." Some may say that is the sign I am not a good cook because I can't multi-task. Whatever! Think that as they may, I like my own little kitchen world of thought processing and food making magic. :P