Disaster and Success

Catharine and I talk about recipes all the time, so it is fun to have a new way to share our successes and failures.  I watched an episode of the Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network where she made some chunky banana nut muffins.  They looked really good, so I decided to give them a try.  I usually love bran muffins, so I thought I should double the recipe.  I had most of the wet ingredients mixed when I realized I was short 1 egg.  Luckily my neighbor bailed me out!  I finished mixing the ingredients, filled the muffin cups and put them in the oven.  I started cleaning up the mess and realized that I hadn't mixed in the bran/buttermilk mixture!  The muffins had only been cooking for 1-2 minutes, so I pulled them out of the oven.  I scraped out the muffin pans, mixed in the forgotten ingredients, cleaned and refilled the muffin pans and put them back in the oven. Finally the muffins were done.  I took a bite out of a hot muffin only to realize that it was gross.  The recipe included molasses and orange zest.  I thought those flavors clashed with the bran flavor.  Also, the chunks of banana created pockets of mush.  I made myself finish the muffin then offered some to John and Ashley.  Both of them were excited to try the  muffins, but didn't end up finishing them.  I ended up throwing away 2 dozen muffins!  After all of this, I called Catharine to tell her of the disaster and her reply was, "I made those same muffins and thought they were gross.  You should have told me you were making them and I would have warned you!"

On a happier note, I made a Pear Ginger Crumble that was delicious!  It had a Tablespoon of freshly grated ginger in it and I was a little scared to put in that whole amount.  I decided to risk it and I am glad I did!  The recipe is also a little more figure friendly than most crumbles.  Here is a link for the recipe:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/pear-ginger-crumble-recipe/index.html