Cooking Disasters

I've had some awful cooking disasters lately.  

This was supposed to be a coffee cake.  A soaked-the-night-before-to-reduce-phytates coffee cake made with wheat flour, organic cane sugar, honey, coconut oil... all healthy stuff.  When the timer beeped, I opened the oven not to a done coffee cake but to this boiling gurgling mess that was spilling all over my oven.  I tried leaving it in a few minutes longer hoping it would somehow finish cooking but the spilled parts started to burn and smoke.  I called it quits and took it out of the oven.  Did I mention that I was making this on playdate morning and the guests were due any minute?  

Later that day I somehow forgot that I hadn't cleaned the oven yet and started to mix up a batch of zucchini bread.  I was quickly reminded of the morning's disaster when the burning coffee cake smell started wafting through the kitchen again.  I hadn't finished mixing up the dough, but had to abandon it because the oven was hot and there was no way I could get it clean now in time to make the bread.  

The day before, I made up a batch of yummy croutons with some leftover bread I'd been saving, put them in the oven and then promptly walked away without setting the timer.  They were black when I remembered them.  

Then there's the whole bagel saga... I've tried making bagels three times now, with the first two times being complete disasters (sticky dough everywhere, bagels with a glue like texture) and the third time being a near success.  I say a "near" success because it took me 20 minutes to pry the bagels off of the pan I baked them on.  

Why am I telling you all of this?  I post my successes and tips here, but there are plenty of failures that don't make it to the blog.  I don't want anyone to be afraid to jump in and try things out; I certainly don't get it all right the first (or second, maybe third?) time.  I'm committed to learning how to keep my family healthy - sharing that process with each other just makes it all the more fun.

I won't even bore you with the details of the shepherd's pie that I made earlier this week that was way too watery and no one liked.  Good thing I made a double batch of that so there was extra for the freezer...