I'm baaaaaack!!!

(Okay, so I'm not very good at being faithful to my blog!)

10 GOOD COOKING TIPS FOR THE CULINARILY-CHALLENGED

1. Get a big bowl to mix things in. When the recipe says to get a medium sized mixing bowl, get a BIG bowl. It's hard to run the mixer with one hand and cup your other hand over the bowl so you can catch some of the stuff flying out.

2. If you put mix brown sugar with a mixer and it's hard and clumpy, the big clumps will shoot right out of the mixer, over the bowl, past your shielding hand, and onto the floor. You might want to break down those clumps before mixing. I tried nuking them in the microwave and it helped a little... but I didn't get all the big clumps. Needless to say, they aren't in the cookie bar mix anymore.

3. When the recipe calls for strawberry pie filling, it's apparently not asking for canned strawberries in a light syrup. I'm not sure how this will affect the cookie bar things, but hopefully it will not be too runny. Hmm...

4. When you blend the canned strawberries in light syrup, don't wear something you like. And get a big bowl if you can.

5. Canned strawberries in a light syrup is easy to clean off the walls if you do it right away.

6. When the recipe calls for a 13X9 inch baking pan, I don't know if those are "real" measurements... at least it doesn't look like it to me.

7. Cats don't appear to appreciate strawberries in their food.

8. When pouring things like almond extract into the measuring spoon, sometimes it's better if you DON'T pour it over the bowl with the mixture in it. If you over-pour, you end up with a lot of extract in the mixture that you can't take out.

9. When cleaning up strawberries from your mixer, don't forget it gets all underneath... and again, it's a lot easier if you do it right away.

10. It's not really a good idea to type on your keyboard if you are cooking and you didn't get all of the strawberry stuff from your fingers.