Disaster in the Kitchen

What a mess!  Since we're having company for dinner, tonight, I was preparing dessert.  I thought I'd make chocolate fudge brownies.  It's a package mix.  I followed directions.  Put it in the oven and started to clean up and saw a package.  It was the chocolate fudge.  I forgot to put in the chocolate fudge!  Too late, the brownies were already baking in the oven.  :-(

So I thought I'd make a fancy jello mold.  Eveyone's on a diet, anyway.  How can anyone screw up jello?

It ain't easy; but I managed to do it.

I made the jello in a large measuring cup pitcher.  As I proceeded to pour the jello into the mold--the bottom fell out!  See picture.

Do you know how sticky jello is?   Ick.

Hubby was baking the turkey breast and preparing everything else.  I could only be trusted to peel vegetables and set the table.

It was delicious, in spite of myself.

Crazy Baking Zest

I'll be crazy for another week.  Ever since I learned of the St. Rocco's Cookie Contest I've been racing around for ideas.  I want my health/diet/support group to enter.  That's TOPS!  Take Off Pounds Sensibly.

I think it's a wicked idea!  TOPS doesn't endorse any one diet plan.  In fact, we've had people in our club that also belong to Weight Watchers, or Jennie Craig.  We're about healthy life styles, rather than diets.  If you must pin us down to a "diet", then we'd say the Exchange Diet.  IOW, we exchange unhealthy food for healthy food.  Heavy cream would be exchanged for low-fat cream.  A slice of pecan pie would be exchanged for an apple.  Get the idea.  TOPS is about changing your life style.

So there I am reading my church bulletin and I see "St. Rocco's Cookie Contest."  How's that for Pastoral Reflection!  I immediately began to salivate think what cookie to make.  Gradually, I tried to think of "exchanges" I should use to make a cookie healthy.  Another thought:  I don't have any Italian cookie recipes. My mother is Lithuanian.

The biggest stumbling block is the fact that the parish, St. Mary's, is saturated with wonderful Italian cooks.  What was I thinking!

But I couldn't let go of the thought.  So I brought the contest to my TOPS meeting.  They latched onto the idea like a shy child on to his mother's skirt.  The recipes morphed into culinary baking concepts.  (Although Gen Gen, a purist, was horrified at the very idea of exchanging her Italian recipes.  Some just don't get the concept.)

I've been marauding Italian cookbooks and learning all about blanching, icing, piping, meringue, etc., because the club is having a sampling at the next meeting.  We will all bring our cookies to the meeting and we'll vote for the most tasty.  That's the one, TOPS 463 will enter in the St. Rocco's Italian Cookie Contest.

As for me, I asked my favorite priest, Father Aniello, who's Italian as you can get, his favorite.  He said,
My favorites are the sfogliatella from Naples and the Paste secche (the dry little cookies made from almond pastry).


Hmmmm.  Maybe I'll make karvojus.