Hello, all!

Hello, everyone!

I hope you are all doing well. I would like to apologize for my long absence from my blogging. Things have been crazy, and quite honestly, sitting down and blogging was the last thing on my mind.

So why is it on my mind now? Because we've had so much fun the last few days. Let me explain...

I was scheduled off work to reduce some of my comp time, so I took advantage and came to SW Missouri to visit my family for 6 days. While here, my sister introduced me to the show "Master Chef". I had never watched this show, and fell in love with it immediately. Watching all of the interesting dishes and challenges has been so much fun. But it's led to 2 things....

1. I want to be on "Master Chef". Will I ever make it? Probably not. But I'd sure love to check into it. It's not because I think I'm the best chef in the world, but because it would be interesting to learn so many new things and find some new challenges myself.

2. We decided to try our hand at making molten lava cakes.

One of the challenges on the show was to make a perfect Molten Lava Cake. According to chef Gordan Ramsey, these make chefs all over the world tremble in fear, as it's a very delicate dessert to make. 1 minute too long in the oven, and it's overcooked and there's no "goo" in the middle. One minute too few, and it's runny and collapses. Now I have certainly eaten a few of these, but had never made one. My sister Amber (another great cook) had neither eaten or made them. So....we decided to give them a try.

We invited my parents over to my sister's house, and while they were here we made a beautiful molten lava cake batter. We poured it into our ramekins, and baked it for the exact 13 minutes the recipe called for. We pulled it out and held our breath as we inverted a plate, and carefully dumped the cake out of the ramekin. It didn't collapse! We dusted them with powdered sugar and quickly handed them off to brother-in-law Patrick and my parents. They cut into them, and they were PERFECT!!! Yay!!!

Now...I'm not going to pretend everything I/we've ever made was perfect...but I'm pretty proud of this. I wish chef Ramsey could try them.

This has really renewed my passion for cooking yet again, so look out blog friends...I'm looking for challenges, so I'll probably be posting more frequently!

Also...here's your chance to be involved....

Challenge me. If there's a dish you would like me to try to make, leave a comment, and if I've never made it before, I'll try my hand at it, and see what happens.

Have a great night!