Ovens and Stoves and the Metric System- oh, my!

I love to bake! It is one of my favorite things to do. It relaxes me when I am stressed out.  It is a wonderful activity that Coop and I can do together. And, I love to eat what I bake. That was until today...

We started today with a trip to the grocery store.  I had a huge list and was prepared to make several different items to last throughout the week. The first was a really simple veggie soup that I have made before. I confidently chopped up my veggies and measured my liquids, put the pot on the stove, let it boil and then turned it down to a simmer. At least what I thought was a simmer.  Now, we have a gas stove here which is great, but not when you are used to an electric stove. This appliance has power!  So, while I thought I was simmering my soup, I was actually boiling it...away.  Burned the whole pot and had to toss it.  That was sucky cooking experience number one of the day.

Next, I decided that Coop and I would make some brownies. I bought a gluten-free brownie mix which is supposed to be easier on Coop's gut.  I prepared the pan and batter as directed (Coop had given up helping at this point) and put it in the oven.  Our stove is pretty fancy and I still haven't mastered that as you learned in the paragraph above and the oven is even more complicated. There are all these options none of which really mean much to me except for "grill."  I mean look at the choices! I was baffled.  Thankfully, I did not have to do any conversions for the oven temperature as it was written on the box. So, I picked the setting that sounded best, put the brownies in and look how they turned out. Aren't these the funkiest brownies you have ever seen?? Now, I know you are asking, well, how did they taste.  According to Cooper they were DELICIOUS. I am not one for gluten-free anything, but they were alright. I managed to eat one or two... So, although the brownies were edible, they did not turn out how they were supposed to in my mind that makes sucky experience number two of the day.

I guess I am glutton for punishment or I figured the third time is a charm. I set about to make a recipe for homemade Goldfish crackers that I found on the internet.  The kids love Goldfish. I love Goldfish. And, you cannot get them here.  The recipe sounded easy enough- 1/2 cup here and few tablespoons there. I took out my butter and read the recipe- 4 tablespoons of butter.  I looked at the butter wrapper- crap! The damn metric system! The butter is marked in grams!  How the heck do you convert grams to tablespoons.  I quickly got online and tried some conversions, but got all these wacky numbers with decimal points and never ending digits.  I felt panic wash over me and had flashbacks to high school math (which as you can imagine was not my strongest subject in fact it left me in tears most of the time).  I took a deep breath and just thought like a kid- you need 4 tablespoons, then measure out 4 tablespoons. And I did....

That problem solved, I calmed down and was able to make the rest of the recipe as it was written.  I even found some good sharp cheddar in the grocery store- something that has been hard to find.  Notice it is not even remotely orange.

Then it was time to mix the ingredients. I did bring my KitchenAid mixer with me, but after my vacuum and boombox experience I am afraid to plug it in and fry it. So I purchased a good, old-fashioned hand mixer. I have not used one of these in ages! It did the trick and my ingredients were ready for the next step.

We rolled and cut the dough. I was going to use some Australian cookie cutters that I had, but they were too cheap and wouldn't cut the dough correctly so we opted for flowers and circles. Coop had a great time with this part as you can see in the pics below.

I turned on the oven and this time studies my options a bit more closely and tried a different setting. Guess I  made the right choice because the crackers came out perfectly and oh, so delicious.  May even be better than Pepperidge Farm. :)

So maybe the third time is the charm, huh?