Cooking with Goldie

So, I love cooking. I love baking. But more than anything, I love eating. Some people say that I’m a good cook but like my brother –in-law’s wonderful mother says, “I’m not a good cook, I’m just a good reader” but even that is a blatant lie. For instance, I was making Betty Crocker’s peanut butter brownies and it clearly said to let the chocolate cool for ten minutes before spreading it. Did I see that? No. What I saw was a cup of ooey, gooey melted chocolate mixed with three tablespoons of perfectly evil butter so I just went to town spreading it all over the totally-not-cooled peanut butter layer. I’d love to say it was just an occasional oversight but my cooking experience tends to be more than occasional. I’ll forget whole steps (especially spraying pans and dishes with cooking spray). I’ll add milk instead of half and half and once I even added cumin instead of cinnamon (I was pregnant, fat and irritable. Surprisingly, no one even noticed).
But like Goldilocks looking for that perfect porridge, I’m always looking for the perfect recipe. Perfect recipes have a home in our house and it’s called our Family cookbook. I like to say that it’s like Marie Barrone’s sought after recipe book in Everybody loves Raymond but to date, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who knows about it. My family thinks that food magically appears from the oven like some Jetsons episode (and hellooooo, GE, what’s taking so long on that invention?)
But only the most special of special recipes find their place in the book. Each one is like a contestant for American Idol and must stand up to the test of the three bears. Baby Bear devours everything except green beans and peas and since I’ve forgotten to buy green beans and peas for the past thirty-five years of my life, I’m not too worried about her. Papa bear is a tough one to impress. Unless it’s fried in our fry Daddy or slathered in real butter without an ounce of nutritional value, the recipe needs to spin and twirl in pasties to impress him (and um, heck no). But it’s my Katie bear that is the real…sorry for the pun…bear in our family. She will not, could not, does not like green eggs and ham or anything resembling something she hasn’t had before.
I search the internet high and low for the best of the best and unfortunately, a lot of them do not pass the test of the judges. But there are a few…a noble, triumphant few that find their way into our lives (And for those of you assuming I’m an American Idol fan, I have to say I’ve boycotted it since we lost Chris Daughtry. A sad day in history).
Anywho, my recipes are tried and true.  Whenever possible, I will definitely give credit where it is due. When impossible, I will lie and say I created it all by myself.