Cooking Extraveganza!

Yesterday I got my Betty Crocker on.

There is a girl in my ward that just had a baby and I was asked if I would bring her dinner last night. I said yes. I love to bring people dinner.

We also have a neighbor that just had surgery yesterday, so I offered to bring them dinner tonight. Again, I love to bring people dinner.

Lastly, I have a friend that is in the hospital because she just barely had her little baby. I haven't offered to bring them dinner (yet...) but I did want to stop by with a little dessert. I had a friend do this while I was in the hospital and her cookies were absolutely fabulous! I think they were the reason that I only lost 4 ounces after birthing an 8 lb 6 oz baby....

Anyways.....I also love to bring people treats so this is right up my alley.

Sadly, I don't do all these dinners and treats because it is service. I don't even do it because I like to help people or because I know how nice it is to have someone bring you food when you aren't able to cook yourself.

These reasons are much too noble.

It is because of very vain and selfish reasons. I'm really hoping that someday, somewhere, someone will tell me I'm a good cook.

That's it....that's the only reason I cook. Because I'm fishing for attention and compliments:) I'm hoping that in this case, the end justifies the means. It's the thought that counts, right?

That is what I tell myself.


So on to my cooking adventures!

So I'm thinking that with 2 dinners and a dessert to make, I should just do them all at the same time. I made a chicken pot pie casserole for the dinners (because the one for today could be frozen till it was time to cook) and then I got ambitious and decided to make these S'more cupcakes for the desserts. Oh....and these cookies. And because Ryan and I had already had this chicken casserole early in the week, I decided to make these chicken enchiladas.

I've got the dinners all put together and I'm working on these cupcakes like my life depends on it. They were a little intense. The recipe also makes enough for 24 cupcakes but I only have 1 pan that holds 12, so I'd do half the batch up to a certain point, then pull them all out of the pan and do the rest of the batch. It really made things go much slower than I anticipated....

Then, at 5:00 I put my casserole in the oven and wait for it to cook the necessary 30 minutes.

30 minutes later, my casserole is not done! The bisquick top is not even set up a little bit and at this point it should be golden brown and crusty. I'm panicking. Dinner is suppose to be at their house at 5:30 and my casserole isn't working. I fire up the oven temperate and put it back in for 5 minutes.

Nothing.

5 MORE minutes....

Slightly more than nothing, but just barely.

10 MORE minutes.....

Barely showing signs that it is being cooked within an inch of its miserable life.

At this point, I had nothing left. I had to go. So I take it out of the oven, drive it over the lady and with these words, "Ya'll should probably just call Pizza Hut....." I hand her the casserole.

I don't think she'll be telling me what a good cook I am.....

So today I'm a little nervous making this second casserole. Hopefully it turns out better than yesterday!

Anyway....
The good part of my day was when I did this:

Boo-ya! NAILED IT!!!
What you are seeing is an all-day muffin job consisting of a graham cracker bottom crust, cake, chocolate glaze and a whipped meringue top that has been broiled in the oven till it resembles a golden marshmallow.

Watch out Betty C.....there's a new sheriff in town.

The the cookies and enchiladas were pretty spectacular too:)

So I have a question for all of you. Would anyone like to have a recipe swap party with me every so often? Maybe once a month or once every 2 months? My idea is that we could all get together for lunch and bring one dish that we had made with enough recipe cards for everyone to take one. That way we could eat, hang out, try the recipes and have the recipe to take home with us. WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK?