Kitchen Disasters

There are things that I can bake and things that I can not bake. We were having friends over for dinner last night, so I wanted to make dessert to go with the low-fat Eggplant Parmesan that I was making. (For anyone doing Weight Watchers, I measured everything and each serving has 7 points plus, I'll share the recipe at the bottom for those who don't care can skip that.)

I got a grand idea that I was going to make a flourless chocolate cake. I made flourless chocolate cupcakes a few weeks ago, how hard could it be?..... Famous-last-words.

I got everything out (butter, chocolate, sugar) and put my two pans on the stove. I got the water/sugar simmering in one, and the chocolate and butter going in the other one. Who doesn't like multi-tasking in the kitchen? In the .4 seconds that I spent to get the eggs out and crack two of them into a bowl I smelled the burning smell. Stupid stove I'm not use to...ugh! The recipe didn't SAY to use a double boiler (and that SHOULD have been my clue that it was a bad recipe.) Chocolate was ruined and I was back to square one.

This time I was smart. I focused JUST on the chocolate and took it off as soon as the last bit was melted. SUCCESS I thought. The hard part is over, or-so-I-thought.

I mixed everything together and went to find my Springform pan, which I quickly remembered was trashed a few years ago. Sigh...

While I felt defeated, I thought and remembered two silicone baking cake pans. I figured those should work right? I needed to put them in a water bath, so I placed the pans into our cast iron pans and into the oven. I figured, 50 minutes and I'll have flourless cake perfection.

Bug and I played for the almost-hour and I went to check the cakes. Still liquid. I checked the oven temperature. It read 350 so the temp was right....w-t-h.

At this point my kitchen is a disaster from the burnt chocolate incident. I hadn't showered, Bug was losing interest in the ridiculous songs I sing to him while I try to cook...it wasn't looking good.

I figured that I will just leave them in a while longer. I mean, maybe the recipe was wrong. Maybe it's because I don't have a Springform pan...maybe it's because I'm using silicone. I waited 10 minutes, still liquid, 10 more minutes... little better, but still liquid. UGH. NOT WORKING OUT FOR ME. The cake was suppose to cool for two hours before serving and I had three until dinner and I still hadn't made the Ganache. Things weren't looking pretty.

I'll save you the rest of the story. It's just too depressing.  Let's just say it was another hour and still a disaster. How bad of a disaster? THIS BAD:

A picture's worth a thousand words. Don't worry. I tasted it for science sake.
Tasted great. Looked like something that should be on Cake Wrecks

SO the cake didn't turn out. Not pleased. It tasted awesome (I haven't found anything chocolate that doesn't taste awesome) but I couldn't serve THAT to guests. I decided to throw together some cupcakes. That took less than an hour and if I would have just made them, I would have saved myself 3 hours of my life. I need to stick to cupcakes. No more of this fancy crap!

Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

The frosting TASTED good, but didn't look very nice. Oh well...still working on the decorating part. I squeezed the extra frosting into drops on parchment paper and put it in the refrigerator. Once they are cold I put them in a container to eat later. :) They're little there can't be THAT much fat, right? 

Now for the Eggplant Parm Recipe--------------------------------------------------------------

I got this YEARS (10 years or so) from a WW cookbook. I haven't found it again, but kept track of all the fat, carbs, fiber, and protein so I could track it.  Ends up being 7 WW Points Plus

Ingredients:

2 Medium sized eggplants 

3/4 cup of egg whites (I just bought a carton at the grocery story) 

1 cup of breadcrumbs (Italian)
1.5 Cups Mozzarella cheese
PAM spray
1 jar favorite spaghetti sauce

Pre-heat oven to 400

Step 1: Wash and cut your eggplant into slices of the same thickness.

Step 2: Put the egg whites in one bowl, and the breadcrumbs in the other bowl. I always add extra salt to the breadcrumbs. I didn't have Italian breadcrumbs, so I used plain and added Italian seasonings. 

Step 3: Spray your baking sheets (I even took a photo of my hand doing it...I must be serious about this recipe!)
Step: 4: Coat your eggplant with egg whites (use a fork) and then toss around the breadcrumbs. Place onto the baking pan. 

Step 5: Bake at 400 for about 25 minutes.  Take out of the oven and turn oven down to 375 while you assemble the rest of your creation.

At this point my adorable assistant was helping me, so no photos, but you're smart people you can visualize this, right? 

Adorable Assistant

Step 6: Take a bottle of spaghetti sauce (your choice) and spread some at the bottom of an 8 X 11 baking pan. Layer the eggplant however you'd wish. Sometimes I overlap it, other times I stack it, but add more sauce between each piece of eggplant. You can throw cheese in too between layers, or to save some fat, put the cheese on top of the finished thing. Once you've layered everything, cover with foil and toss back in at 375 for 15-20 minutes.

It's super easy to make. I like to make a lot and freeze it for the days that I'm too tired too cook. It turns out just as well out of the freezer.  Let me know if you make it!

Weight Watchers Fail

I have had a weird week. Not a bad week, just weird. I made batch after batch of cupcakes. IF I had willpower I would bake them, maybe eat a bite of one to confirm they were indeed delicious and leave it at that. Nope. Not me. I am part goldfish you see. You can only put as much food in front of me as I should eat for the day. Anything more than that and I EAT EVERYTHING. That happened with the cupcakes.

Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercreme Frosting

Vanilla Cupcakes and Chocolate Sour Cream Cupcakes w/ Buttercreme icing

I know everyone is SO SHOCKED that I used Buttercreme. I WOULD make other icing, but I have this one almost nailed down. I'm afraid of trying to do other things, although my heavy whipping cream is going to go bad in my fridge. 

Anyway. Today was weigh in day at Weight Watchers. I DID NOT GO. I need to confess somewhere, so might as well confess here. I was afraid to go and see that I gained 8 pounds in a week (I'm SURE this is possible.) I've lost 20ish pounds post Bug. Keep in mind I gained 40ish pounds while pregnant with him. I WAS HUGE. 

How huge you ask?

This Huge

That my friends is me at almost 42 weeks pregnant. The shawl was my MIL's and somewhere she had a picture of herself wearing it while pregnant with my hubby. I don't think she's doing the dorky move though. 

(See, I'm REALLY good at rambling. Try holding a conversation with me in real life, I'll give you a headache!) 

So I skipped out. I'm putting myself on a one week baking break and going to try to cut back on sugar. I wasn't allowed to have many sweets when I was little. I think I'm making up for that now. After I lose the 20 pounds to go to get back to pre-Bug. I THEN have about 30 more to go to get back to pre-hubby.

PLEASE TELL ME WHY: Tell me why you gain weight when you get married. Seriously. GRR. 

Someone yell at me next Thursday and make sure that I went to Weight Watchers.