or: More Reasons I Will Not Be Winning "Mom of the Year"
Reason One
I made marshmallows. On the surface, this seems like a very "good mother," domestic-y thing to do. Except I messed it up. I blame it on my mixer, which is really my mom's. I have a wonderful Kitchen Aid stand mixer that WunderHubbee got me when we were still dating (somewhere around the 5 year point). For better or for worse, though, the Kitchen Aid is big and weighs a ton, so I didn't bring it to the apartment with me. Knowing that I wanted to make marshmallows, I asked Mom to bring me her stand mixer, instead, because it was lighter.
Problem 1 (self-inflicted): I heated the syrup in a kettle that had two small handles, not one long handle.
Problem 2: The spinning mechanisim on the mixer (you know, how the bowl is supposed to spin) was broken. Which meant I had to spin the bowl manually, while attemtping to drizzle 244* syrup from a kettle that required two hands to hold it. So I ended up giving the bowl a very vigourous spin, and then prayed that it would spin long enough for me to drizzle in some syrup. Much to my shock, this worked remarkably well.
Problem 3: The creme started to climb up the mixer. You're supposed to beat the whole mess for 15 minutes. At the 7-minute mark, the creme developed a mind of it's own and started to creep up the beaters. I was able to control this for a while with constant bowl-scraping, which led to...
Problem 4: My plate scraper came apart mid-scrape. I had to fish the head out of the creme (um, that sounds dirtier than intended). Loads of fun. I ended up with marshmallow cream spread hither and yon, covering pretty much every surface in the kitchen. Ryan said it looked like the set of a g*y p*rn. Worse still, the constant scraping didn't help for long and soon led to....
Problem 5: I was so flustered by the whole endeavor that I forgot to add the vanilla and the salt. I've forgotten the vanilla in the past with no ill effects. But the salt made me nervous. I just cut them up a bit ago (and by the way, the pizza cutter worked slicker than snot and I thoroughly recommend it). They're not bad. But they're not really....anything. Darren seemed to like them, but to me, there's really no taste to them. Guess it's a good thing I bought extra gelatin.
Reason Two
I made Pumpkin Butterscotch Cookies. I know, on the surface, this, too, looks like a "good mom" thing. Problem is, my cookies turned into bars. The dough was way too batter-y to expect it to stay on a cookie sheet. I'm not crazy about cookie bars, but I wasn't left with many other options. To add insult to injury, I suspect I may not have baked them enough. I've never made cookie bars and I was kinda winging that part. I had one from the corner that was pretty good, but I have yet to sample the middle.
Reason Three
I made soup. Sadly, I didn't realize we were out of bread. No grilled cheese for my hungry brood. (And yes, baking bread did cross my mind, but it was about 4:30 before I realized we were out. Bread at 8:30 wasn't going to do any of us much good.
And because nothing I made today was picture-worthy, I give you:
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