The Ups and Downs of Cooking

As a newly married woman, I take pride in the fact that the only dinner I've completely ruined (though my husband would argue it's never happened) is homemade macaroni and cheese. Yes, I did the unthinkable and placed raw macaroni in the oven with a mere 3/4c of milk and left it to bake for an hour expecting it to come out delicious and soft. WRONG! Since then, I haven't had any blunders aside from "oh I'll put more/less of this in next time". But then, Mark's birthday came around................
August 24th, 8am. I took Mark to work for the day so that I could have the car to run some errands. I was to meet him at 12:30 where we would go out to lunch together to celebrate his day. I had the day all planned out: bake the cake, clean the house, wrap his presents, meet him for lunch, come back and frost the cake, and make dinner to have ready right as he came home from work at 5:30(meatloaf and mashed potatoes). He wanted a yellow cake for the occasion. In the past we've made super moist cake by adding applesauce to substitute one egg. I did so again...adding moisture to one of those already "super moist" cakes. After spraying the pan with cooking oil, I put it in the oven. All seemed well aside from the middle that had raised up--until I turned it over after only 10 minutes of cooling. Imagine the shock and horror this new wife has the day of her husbands birthday looking at the cake that is halfway on the cooling wrack, with the bottom half still in the pan. After a few desperate phone calls, I was given some advice: grease the pan with Crisco and flour, and in the future substitute applesauce for vegetable oil only. (Thanks Grandma and Shelene!) So 2 cake mixes later, this was Mark's cake. We celebrated with my parents, his siblings, Nathan and Tippe and one of my sisters. We also got a later surprise visit from my sister Shelene who dropped by on her break from working that night. Although it had a rocky start, I felt like things turned out well for Mark's first birthday that I was in "charge" of.

For those who never use them, or don't have a kitchen aid, they all come with a wire whisk, flat beater, and a dough hook. On one of my first days of school, before I succumbed to doing homework, I decided to make Amish White Bread. Rather than making a mess mixing the dough myself, I decided I would try out the dough hook and see what happened. It was the best thing ever! Of course I still had to knead it at the end, but I didn't end up with dough all over my fingers. It was interesting to watch it grab more and more flour from the sides as it grew. Pretty soon it was just swirling around in the bowl like one of those crazy bread machines. (Okay, someones a little addicted to cooking/her kitchen aid.) The bread turned out perfect. Not too dry, and with the 1c of sugar, had a sweet taste to it which made it all too addicting.
Surprisingly, we are going through a lot less flour, sugar and eggs now that I am back in school and have less time for cooking. This will probably continue due to recent events: In support of his wife, Mark also helped me to throw out doughnuts, cookies, and unhealthy food we had in our apartment in attempt to start eating better. I couldn't let him part with ice cream so we hid it in the back of the freezer with the promise I would not have any without him and we'd only have 2 scoops. I think the homemade doughnuts I've yet to try will have to wait for a day where we decide it's okay to have a treat and invite people over to help us eat them as well!