Cooking Less Effectively with Alana

Yesterday is one for the books in regards to my cooking abilities. A culinary chef I am not but I try. It's not as bad as the time I set a cake on fire but it's just that every meal took a beating!

So first things first. Breakfast at 7:00am. I made everyone oatmeal and the girls like it a lot. I decided that I would add a little cinnamon for a change and as I was shaking it into the pot I suddenly noticed that I couldn't see the cinnamon coming out. I kept shaking and then realized that it was a really pale color. Huh? I looked at the label and saw that I had added garlic powder instead of cinnamon. Nasty! I casually asked Madison if she would like grape jelly mixed in with her oatmeal today. That sounded exciting to her as we've never done that! So though I tried to mask the garlic taste it didn't work quite as well as I had hoped. Madison said "Mommy, wherever there is no jelly in my oatmeal it tastes yucky," So more jelly was added. I put in a lot more grape jelly in Celina's and amazingly both girls ate it all gone! The smell in the kitchen was awful. Garlic is not a smell I enjoy first thing in the morning!

For lunch, Scott told Celina that Mommy would take her to McD's for lunch.... I am really trying to watch what I eat so this did not help me. I would rather eat a salad at home for free than pay for a dried out one at McDonald's. Well, Celina was happy. My fish sandwich can technically be called a sandwich, I guess. Parts of the fish were sort of between the buns.

For dinner I had been anticipating a yummy beef stew all day. This time Madison requested turnips be added. Okay, we can do that! (She turned down a cookie a few days ago. She didn't get that from me!) I made the stew and it turned out to be the WORST stew I have ever made! The celery I used was bought from a farm stand outside of St. Augustine. It was the hugest bunch I have ever seen and super dark green. That should have tipped me off but of course it didn't. The celery was super bitter! It ruined the whole stew! I don't think the turnip had much to do with it as it tasted really mild but I could be wrong. Madison and Celina managed to choke it down but I can't stand the thought of eating it again so into the garbage it will go.

I thought that maybe we could have a treat to make up for the nasty food I had served all day and so I decided to make tex mex sundaes. We saw Paula Deen make them on her show and it looked so easy. It's a fried tortilla sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar with ice cream and chocolate sauce on top. Apparently in the south you can't serve anything unless you fry it first which makes me feel ill. I figured one tortilla split between the three of us would be plenty. So I heated up the oil and burnt the tortilla. After all, why stop now? Luckily, I saved it before it got too too bad and gave myself the worst share of it. I figured that was fair since I made my children eat garlic flavored oatmeal but couldn't stomach it myself. The sundaes were pretty good actually. The burnt part just gave it a roasted flavor.