Domestically Challenged

This is the story of me attempting a new quiche recipe tonight:

At the grocery store.  What is WITH my cart?!  It's making sounds like it is grinding rocks into sand!!  HOW AWKWARD!!  Stupid cart-grinder haunted me the entire 20 minutes I was in the store.

 That's just the beginning.

Didn't know the difference between the creams.  Recipe called for "light cream"; I picked up whipping cream?  (My logic: Well, it doesn't say "light," but it doesn't say "heavy" like the one next to it!)  Wasn't sure how much was required so I bought the pint just to be safe.

Bought fully-cooked bacon to save myself some trouble.

At home.  Didn't double-check the amount of ingredients to add.

Heat up the oven to 425 degrees.

Minced an entire onion to DEATH, bound and determined to prove to myself that I can MINCE an onion!  I still didn't do it to my satisfaction, nonetheless...

Started sprinkling it into the pie pan.

Realized that is WAY THE HECK too much onion!!  Shook my head at the insanity of the onion-loving people who write these recipes.

Decided to use the second pie crust (WHY do they sell them only in twos??!?!!) and just make two quiches.  I sure hope we like this recipe, because we're going to have a TON of it!

Tried to chop up already-cooked bacon, which was not nearly crisp enough to be chopped.  Decided to just tear every piece by hand.  Sprinkled half in one pie pan, half in the other.  Knew it wasn't enough bacon per quiche, but decided it would just have to do.

Went back to the recipe.

Realized it only called for ONE THIRD OF AN ONION!!!!  Not an entire onion!!!

Scooped out as much onion as I could without scooping out all the bacon.  Realize the dough is getting way too soft because it's sitting on top of our oven, which is preheated by now.

Decided to start the filling part.  Vaguely worry if we have enough eggs for two quiches.  Find that we have exactly 8, which is exactly what is needed.  Hallelujah!  Cracked the eggs in a big bowl.

Went back to the recipe.

Realized it called for TWO CUPS of cream!  That's all I had!

Frantic, stressed-out trying to figure out how to substitute because I'm already late and SO do not want to make another trip to Freddy's. Plus, now I had eight eggs not being refrigerated and two crusts threatening to melt on me!

And I wasn't even sure if I had the right cream!

Quick computer research to see if anything substitutes for light cream (thank You, God, for the Internet!).  Decided that trying to melt butter was too much work.  Quick computer research to see what light cream actually is.  Half and half?  Whoops!  Oh well.  I'm sure a little extra creaminess will do no harm to this quiche.

So I have to go back to the store.  What to do about the partially-filled melting crusts and the perishing eggs?

Shove things aside in the fridge and put in the bowl of eggs.

Carefully balance two crusts in our over-full freezer.  :S

Turn off oven.  No fires for my apartment, thank you very much!

Back at the grocery store.  Run in, grab a pint of half-and-half, use the self-check, run out.

Back at home.  Turn oven back on.  Pull out crusts (thank You, God, that they didn't fall out of the freezer onto the floor) and eggs.  Pour cream and half and half into bowl of eggs.  Add salt, sugar, cayenne pepper.  Attempt to whisk.  My arm!!

Take a knife to both cheeses, guesstimating how much of a chunk I'm going to need to make 1 c. of each kind.  Grate, grate, grate, grate!!  Dumped a chunk of swiss cheese on the floor.  Used up the rest of the small pack of swiss--just barely enough for a cup!

Sprinkled in cheese.

Used a measuring cup to dole in cream mixture.  Didn't use it all because they would've overflowed!!

Carefully. Carefully.  Carefully.  Place both quiches in oven.

PHEW!!!

Epic conclusion to the story:
I dropped one of the quiches SPLAT on the oven door as I was trying to pull it out.

Sigh.

It had to be coming, right?

Perfect Quiche

Unlucky Quiche

Well, it is Christmas...

...Which is my excuse for posting so many blogs.  

Today I made lemon bars for Steve's birthday.  (Specially requested.)  I had no powdered sugar to put on top, so they came out looking kind of naked... But they still taste good. :)

Mommy Claus

Steve worked from home until lunch.  On lunch break, he put chains on his car's tires to drive to the office.  I really wished he weren't going and almost made him stay, but just as he was trying to say goodbye, Mom called and declared she was coming to our house.

"You are?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yeah.  I got my Jeep," she said.

Mom loves her Jeep.  She drove cross-country in it last fall, all by herself, camping at KOA sites along the way so she didn't have to pay for hotels and such.

"O-k-a-y," I said, knowing full well that once my mom sets her mind to things, she gets them done, come hell or high water.  Or just high snow.  

So off Stephen went to work, and about 45 minutes later, Mom came in with a gust of wind and a bag of goodies.  Kind of like Santa Claus.

"I ought to call you Mommy Claus," I told her as she pulled out Christmas napkins, Christmas candles, Christmas Trader Joe's cookies, and ornament hangers--plus some music I'd forgotten at her house.

The Sugar Cookie Saga

"I forgot the sugar cookie ingredients too," I told her.  I was determined to make sugar cookies this season.  Even though I'm missing (nearly) all the ingredients, not to mention most of the cooking stuff, and have never, ever made sugar cookies before.

"Oh!" Mom said triumphantly.  "Yes, so guess what I did..."

And she pulled flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and vanilla out of her sack.

I love my mom. :)

So I now had all the ingredients... Except shortening.  Mom decided we should go in her Jeep to Fred Meyer's nearby and buy some shortening.  She also wanted a shovel.  "Good luck!" I said.  "Fred Meyer's is out of everything winter, and nothing's getting restocked because all the trucks are stuck."

We ventured out anyway and picked up some shortening.  I also bought cooking spray and frosting.  As we shopped around, I realized...I didn't have a rolling pin.  Mom suggested I use the can of Pam.

Mom took off pretty soon after we returned.  As soon as she left, I researched sugar cookies on the Web (yep, I didn't even have a recipe!).  Every recipe I found included mixing up the ingredients with an electric mixer... Which I also don't have.

This was a true crisis.

I called Mom up.  "Mom, can you make sugar cookies without an electric mixer?" I asked, worried.

"Oh," Mom said, in that 'Hm... Didn't think of that...' tone.  "Well, yeah, with arm power.  And a sturdy mixing spoon.  It'll be... Well, then there's the flour.  Oh well.  Just use arm power!"

Hm.  How hard was this going to be?

I thanked my mom, and with my recipe up on the computer, a mixing bowl and a clean wooden spoon in hand, I jumped in.

All in all, I think it went over pretty well.  Stirring the cookie dough wasn't that difficult.  The only real problem I had was counter space, or lack thereof.  

I made cookies in the shapes of Christmas trees, ornaments, hearts, and one candy cane.  Only one, because the dough kept breaking.

The hearts were thrown in there because it was the only cookie cutter I had even remotely close to a Christmas shape.  Christmas means love, right?

The rest of the cookie shapes were made from cutting around cardboard cut-outs, an idea I got from my grandma.

I still have half of the dough left and plan on finishing up tomorrow, but our cookies look beautiful. :)