Just to Redeem Myself

I made Eggplant Parmesan for dinner tonight... Looks a little better than my cookies did don't ya think? :)

I sauteed up some zucchini and yellow squash too...and kinda forgot about it. That's why its a little crispy around the edges, but it was still quite tasty.

And this is from a couple of weeks ago...Not the best pic of my face..but check out those fruit kabobs!
(My shirt, purse, and jewelery from Mexico are pretty fabulous too I think. ;) )

So there is proof that I don't always botch up my kitchen adventures!

Sometimes you got it. And sometimes you don't.

Tonight, I didn't.
I like to consider myself a pretty good cook and can make a mean brownie. But my baking adventure tonight was just that, an adventure. I decided to make cookies for one of the girls I visit teach for her birthday tomorrow. So after I got home from playing volleyball around 11:30pm I started to whip up a batch of cookies.
Then the troubles began.

First. I realized as I was mixing everything together that I didn't have any salt. Nor did my roommates. And we aren't good enough friends with the neighbors yet to wake them up at 11:45pm for a tsp of salt. So off to the store I went. 11:40, Fry's is closed so its off to Safeway. Get my salt. Get home and realize I'm just over 1 cup short of oatmeal to add to the cookie dough. Oh well, Safeway is closed by now. Let's hope it isn't a big deal...

Second. The baking stone. I bought a baking stone a couple of weeks ago and have been really excited to bake cookies on it. My friend Sarah l0ves her baking stone so I wanted to give one a try. Well, the baking stone and I got into a little bit of an argument over the first round of cookies and this was all that was left of the cookies by the end:
Sarah...what on earth did I do wrong??

Third. After the unfortunate event with the baking stone, I go back to my good ol' trusty baking sheet and pop the second round of cookies in the oven. Set the timer for the lower time. Go read my book while the cookies are baking. Timer goes off. Come back into the kitchen to take the cookies out of the oven and THIS is what I come back to:
Burnt cookies. I can't believe it! It's about 12:45am by this time and I'm just ready to go to bed. I quickly take these bad boys off the baking sheet and throw in one more round of cookies and set the timer for one minute less than I did the time before. What more could go wrong, right?

WRONG! THIS is what I come back to:
THIS time, we have burnt edges, uncooked middles, and not one cookie that stayed together. Third time's a charm? I think not. So, I realized I had lost the battle tonight, surrendered, and put the rest of the cookie dough in the fridge for a better day.
The best part about messing up cookies all night though, was eating a lot of my mess-ups, because no matter how ugly they looked on the outside, they still tasted great to my insides. :)

But like I said before...Sometimes you got it. And sometimes you don't.