Muddled Monday

What an interesting day it has been. Let me begin by telling you that I am a 'test cook' for Cooks Illustrated Magazine. All that means is that they send me a recipe to try and then I fill out a survey and let them know how it goes. I believe it gives them a good idea how things work at home vs. a set up test kitchen. And BTW - if you have never seen their show on Public TV.. I recommend you catch it sometime if you like to cook. Its 'America's Test Kitchen'. Here in KY - its on KET, but I believe you can watch it on any Public TV Station. Anyway, today I decided to try their latest recipe: Lemon Pudding Souffle Cake. All was going ok - until I realized that I had no Corn Starch. Went to the store - continued my adventure. Its a long, LONG, involved recipe. I won't get into details.. but I ran into a bit of trouble when I had to beat egg whites into a stiff peak - got to soft peak stage and added sugar (Mom says too much too quick) and never got stiff peaks.. But decided to go ahead and do it anyway. All was fine. For the final step - you put this in an 8 x 8 pan, then place the pan in a roasting pan on a towel. Once that is all in the oven - you pour boiling water in roasting pan - around souffle. NOT EASY! I got a little water in the souffle.. but carried on.. a bit frustrated. It has to cook for an hour. My oven is testy when it comes to temperature.. runs hot USUALLY. Must have today, because when I put my meatloaf in for dinner - the souffle was done at 40 minutes! So, I popped the meatloaf in and went to take the souffle out, didn't realize I hadn't grabbed the oven rack.. and tipped EVERYTHING all over!! And I mean all over! In the meantime, my glasses were fogging up and souffle was dripping all over and water water everywhere! Chad came running and I was yelling "my eyes - my eyes".. trying to get him to see I couldn't see, but the poor guy thought I burnt my eyes. He finally understood and got my glasses off so I could "kinda" see what to do with the cake (this whole time I was holding the cake pan). We were able to salvage enough souffle to taste. And, now my kitchen needs a good bath! My sweet husband is now cleaning up the mess for me. What a guy! Not to mention that I couldn't cook my meatloaf because there was cake all over the oven. SO- in the fridge for tomorrow. Chad says "Well, now you have dinner all ready for tomorrow and think how good it will be now that the flavors have had time to marinate!" What a sweetie pie. My mom is calling him "Pollyanna" -(if you have no idea what that means it is an old Disney movie about a girl that sees the best in things- you should see it!). I had 2 lemons left - so I decided to make us lemonade. Can you believe one of them had NO juice? Not even a drop! What else can go wrong?? Oh..the cake.. it was ok.. Will never make it again! (can you blame me?) It was VERY VERY VERY lemon-y. Too much for my taste. All in all.. I guess it came out as it was supposed to, but not my thing. Chad liked it. SO, America's Test Kitchen.. you got an interesting review coming your way! In retrospect, all I can say is "May your Lemons of Life Always have Juice!"