Kitchen Blues

Am I the only one who experiences kitchen blues every now and again, or are there others out there just like me? I will say that I really enjoy cooking and baking and over the years, my skills have put out some amazing food. But there are also those times when things comes out "not-so-great" to say the least, which sometimes happens when I try a new recipe I'm excited about. This happened to me earlier this week. I was taking the chance at trying a new recipe I'd been pondering a long time. (Later, I found out it wasn't actually the recipe I was after.) Well, I had barely gotten started when I came to realize that this cooking expedition wasn't going to go over so well. When that happens, I wish I could make everything disappear and start all over with something else. Seriously, when things go wrong in the kitchen, I get stressed out.

That made me think that somebody needs to write a book on how to deal with every possible kitchen dilemma. There probably is one, seeing there is a book on everything you could possibly imagine, or so it seems. And sometimes I think some recipes are just jokes to create horrific disasters, like the time I was baking a cake and suddenly realized as I was stirring in the flour that what I had on my hands was more of a cookie dough than a cake batter. Only then did I notice that the recipe didn't call for any milk or water and the only moisture was a small amount of oil, eggs and whatever juice escaped from the apples. I baked it anyway hoping it would magically turn out somehow, but in short, I'll just say, that we didn't end up finishing that cake. All in all, it can be pretty discouraging when you make things that don't turn out and it dampens your ambition to keep going.

So after my not-so-great dinner on Monday, you can imagine how thrilled I was when I came home from work Tuesday night to see my mom take a beautiful lasagna out of the oven. Now we're not talking any lasagna, because I think there's many not-so-impressive ones out there. This is the one with tender noodles, zesty pasta sauce, lean ground beef seasoned with salt, pepper, basil, oregano, onions, bell peppers, and mushrooms. Then we also have the cottage cheese in between layers and topped generously with mozzarella cheese and baked perfectly. It is then served with a Caesar salad made in our household only with the best Renee's Caesar dressing. By now, my readers are probably starving and drooling without realizing it, so I'll stop. But just for the record, we enjoy some pretty awesome food.

I know Jesus handled some food dilemmas wonderfully. I certainly couldn't come up with a way to feed 5000+ people with a few loaves of bread and a couple fish. Yet somehow, I don't have the faith to pray and ask Him to fix my kitchen flops when they happen. I suppose it is all a part of learning and I must bear it patiently like everything else.

Until next time, God bless, and although many of us are fortunate to eat so well, do consider the millions of people and children who can't. They need our prayers and support!