Busy kitchen day!!

So today was a really busy day in the C family kitchen. I don't know exactly what I was thinking! I started out all good-intentions and lets-have-fun and wound up, well, giving my pots and pans a lot of exercise!

For starters, I decided I wanted to make marshmallow-cereal treats. I don't know about you, but I think that Rice Krispy treats are even yummier when made with Cheerios instead of Rice Krispies. And Cinnamon Toast Crunch was on sale recently, so I decided to throw some of that in, as well. Keep in mind, though, that I didn't actually want to have a whole pan of these treats in the house... so I did what any "involved mommy" would do - I e-mailed the preschool teacher and asked her if I could send them in for snack time tomorrow. She said yes. Awesome. I get to make the treats and get them out of the house!

This is one of the few times that I let little miss help me at the stove. She knows to stay away from hot burners and all, but I do let her help stir the melting marshmallows. She knows very well to only touch the spoon, never touch the pot, and listen very carefully when mommy asks her to step back. She also test-tastes the marshmallows for me. And the cereal, too. Each kind of cereal requires separate taste testing. A very important job. The treats turned out pretty tasty. I made one pan for the preschoolers and a smaller pan for us for dessert. Worked out well! So then I moved on to the next thing...

I wanted to make something for my Zumba instructor, who is out sick for a little while. I decided on vanilla muffins. Actually, I decided on cinnamon muffins, and then changed up the flavor when my sister gave me half a bag of beautiful vanilla beans. Regardless, we set forth making muffins. Helper girl back in action helped with the mixing, and as the batter mixed, we were really excited. They smelled good. The batter looked perfect, nice and fluffy, scooped really easily into our (well greased) muffin tins (remember that - they were well greased!), and smelled amazing as they baked. They came out of the oven looking great, too, if I do say so myself... Until I tried to remove them from the tin. Umm... yeah, that didn't work so well. When I carefully slid the offset spatula (I love my offset spatula!) in, the tops popped off. Every time. No matter what I tried. Then, even when I carefully tried to loosen the (now toppless) muffins from the tin, most of them stuck. In the well-greased tin. Charming. They taste good, which should make me feel good about it, but seeing as the point was to bring them to someone as a get-well gesture, yeah, that was kind of a fail. I should probably post a picture of what the muffins look like now. Quite a bit different. And, for the first time in YEARS, I am actually out of flour, so it isn't like I can just make another batch... Oh well. It's the thought that counts, right?

Now, can you believe, that after all of that, I still made dinner? Shepherd's pie. Which requires multiple pots, a baking dish, a cutting board, knives, my masher... you know, pretty much half of the utensils in the kitchen. For a "one dish dinner." The good news is that it was really tasty, and that I managed to make it, wash the dishes and get the kitchen cleaned up all in time to go to my Zumba class tonight.

I think my kitchen deserves a rest. At least until tomorrow.