There is something very, very wrong with the karma in my kitchen. Either that or I have totally lost it (and by ‘it’ I mean my ability to cook).
Yesterday was a long, exhausting day. The kind of day for which comfort food was invented. So sprinkled a whole chicken with some lemon zest and thyme, drizzled it with olive oil, threw it in the oven, and put on my fuzzy PJs. Then I made biscuits – and honey butter. When I went to pull my chicken out of the oven, the skin was wonderfully brown and crispy, and as I was busy congratulating myself for my perfect roast, it took me a minute to notice the problem.
You see, I had put the chicken in the roasting pan upside down! And do you know what happens when the chicken goes in breast down? I do! What happens is that the breast does not cook. Or, at least, the breast cooks very, very slowly. I have rosted quite a number of chickens, and I have never, ever been absent-minded enough to put them in the pan upside down! Well, until yesterday that is. And by this time it was nine o’clock and we were hungry and cranky. So we ate biscuits for dinner.
And then tonight, all I did was press down the toaster lever. I put in my tortilla, set the toaster to ‘light’ and 30 seconds later there were flames all over my counter. I grabbed the fire extinguisher, screamed my head off, tried not to breathe in smoke, and realized that I had no idea how to use a fire extinguisher. Thankfully, Jeff was a bit calmer, and he snatched the fire extinguisher from me and with one quick burst took care of the toaster. Normally, this wouldn’t have been a terrible omen, but since it was my second fire in less than a month, I’m a bit worried. A few weeks ago, I saw a podcast on drying herbs in the microwave. Sounded easy enough to me, but a paper towel and three sprigs of dill later, my microwave burst into flames. As I said, bad juju.
Of course, I couldn’t really leave it at that. So I made cookies. Easy, easy, easy cookies. The simplest, most lovely, peanut butter cookies. I have been meaning to make these for a while, and tonight I just needed to prove that I could do it, that could make my kitchen do its job. In any case, they are sweet and crumbly and perfect, and you don’t have to actually tell anyone how easy they are.
Peanut Butter Cookies
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup granulated sugar, plus extra for rolling
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg, beaten
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix all ingredients together until well incorporated and smooth. Roll the dough into balls, about one inch in diameter. Roll each ball in more sugar before placing on a greased cookie sheet. Press each ball down with a fork once, and then again at a 90 degree angle. Bake for about 12-15 minutes until slightly brown around the edges. Transfer to a rack and cool.
Cozy, Delicious 