1:2

The title refers to my cooking record today. And also on the injury rate, though if that was the third variable it would be 1:2:3.

Let's start with the apple cake. I've made that cake at least five times. It's always excellent. Except today. Why? Well, forgetting to add the sugar until the very end is never a good thing. I should have started over. But I didn't. It's like a cinnamon-apple brownie. Not bad (the flavor's good), but not cake.

Next are the ribs. Yes, we had baby-back ribs for Thanksgiving. We don't play "traditional" around here much. So we had salad and ribs, and (in theory) apple cake. The ribs had a coca-cola glaze, made with coke, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, and a hot pepper.

First, the peppers were making the glaze smell terrible, so I fished most of them out (2 peppers, minced. I used a slotted spoon and left in just a little bit). Then, it turned out that when you boil sugar with sugar-syrup what you get is soft-ball stage candy. Imagine ribs that make your teeth stick together. Finally, I was experimenting with one of those rib recipes where you just cook them until they're done. Not falling off the bone but more like firm pork-chop consistency meat. Charles was ok with that, but it turns out I'm not. I did not enjoy the texture.

So that's two failures. Or, at the very least, two non-successes. I'd make the ribs again, but I'd make the glaze differently and I'd slow-braise the ribs so they're soft.

There was one success in today's culinary adventure. I made absolutely outstanding shortbread. Plain, simple shortbread. It's ridiculously good. I like to cut the square of baked shortbread into tiny pieces (one inch square) for my Christmas cookie boxes. This means I always have corners and edge pieces to "discard" (read: eat).

So I took those bits over to Iain in a little bowl and said, "cookie." He was all, "oh, ok, Mom. Whatevs." and he took one. He tasted it. He said, "Cooookie!" with his eyebrows raised as if to exclaim: "where have you been all my life!??"

In other news, I managed to have One Of Those Days with regard to minor injuries. I pulled off part of my cuticle at the store, then somehow jammed a piece of orange rind up under my thumbnail. Then I was pushing The Pasha at the park and got too close. Boot to the teeth. Joy.

Iain had a good day, though. He read his books in the morning (as you can see above), watched an episode of Monster Machines via Netflix, enjoyed a delicious brekkie of scrambled eggs, a crepe with Nutella, and fresh fruit (banana, orange, and the ubiquitous kiwi), had a morning snack with The Dad, went for a freezing cold visit to the park, and then acted as official taster of cookie shards. Good times.

Tomorrow: more shortbread, chocolate/pistachio biscotti, and chicken breasts for dinner. I figure that's easy enough that I should do ok. Right?