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Dear Diary – I don’t know what I was thinking, or if I was thinking, when I decided to break tradition and make a New Year’s resolution. But so far, i’s been ok. I decided to try 1 new recipe a week (but not make myself crazy crazier stress if I have a bad week and just can’t), and share it with you. I missed telling you about the most recent ones.

Black Bean Burger

We live in the city, but Hubby and I come farming stock. Consequently, we are carnivores and we’re staying that way. However, taking a break from meat to enjoy other bounty is supposed to be healthy. Beans are a great source of fibre and nutrients, and a favourite of Hubby’s. But we all know what happens when he eat beans, which is why I can’t feed them to him too often.

I’ve already warned my potential future daughter in law to sit gently on our couch (so as not to release a noxious cloud), or just avoid it completely. There have been 3 men living in this house, the couch is over 20 years old, and I can only imagine what lives inside it!

I am a warrior! I’ve survived diapers and driving lesson at the same time. So, bean burger night didn’t make me quake in my boots.

Perhaps it should have.

I baked these burgers and used less spice than suggested, and they were good…but spicy! I only got through a quarter before I passed it over to Hubby. He ate 2 1/2 burgers. I checked to make sure we still had a fire extinguisher in the kitchen. Spicy+beans+old couch seemed like a dangerous combination.

Another evening I made a delicious Easy Goulash that only took about 35 minutes. That’s my kind of meal. It gives me more time to play Minecraft before dinner.

I’m not sure what I’m making this week, and the week is flying by. Most of the recipes I’ve stockpiled are desserts, but my recent heartbreaking closet purge has me thinking that’s not such a great idea.

Life is uncertain…Eat dessert first!

Dear Diary – I was draggin’ by the time I finished Eldest Son’s Dragon, but I think he’s pleased with the result.

I asked his girlfriend if she’d like one too, but she said “ no, I’m good”.

We had a lovely visit with both boys on the weekend at Eldest Son’s place (and I didn’t have to cook. But I did do dishes!). I also baked the birthday cake. Shoot, it would have been the perfect opportunity to try a new recipe.

I cheated with a mix and Betty Crocker provided the icing. Only the icing isn’t like regular buttercream icing. The plan had been to pipe rosettes, starting with blue at the bottom, then green, then orange. I wanted to try out the new food colouring set I got for Christmas. But the rosettes melted like mascara on a Goth chick in the rain. I tried to smooth it to create an ombré effect. But the more I tried to smooth it, the more it oozed. The cake was fresh and I had no time to freeze it so it was also collecting crumbs, making the mess…messier.

I decided to leave the sides for the moment and focus on the top. With the right angle, I could snap a great pic of the top as he blew out his candles and miss the mess. Or I could cover the sides with mini M&Ms. So I filled my bag with orange icing and started to carefully pipe the edge.

My bag exploded all down the side, like a kid who ate too many gummy bears.

Then I ran out of icing.

Like everything these days, only the packaging size is shrinking. I now had 78% coverage, and a lot of crumbs to cover and cracks to spackle. I couldn’t just do a plain vanilla cake. Oh no! I decided (like a moron) to redeem myself from the lumberjack cake disaster of 2020 and I baked a blue cake and an orange cake to create a checkered cake.

Fortunately, I had a senior’s moment at some point and I had an extra can of icing in my baking drawer. Fed up, I slapped white over the top and plastered over it with the orange I salvaged from the side.

I unceremoniously slapped on the candy too, and proceeded to make myself sick eating what was left.

The checkerboard worked even if the icing did not. We used only one candle. Eldest Son doesn’t have a fire extinguisher. I hope he doesn’t eat a lot of beans.

I have 2 months to plan for the next birthday cake.

Or find a good bakery.

Dear Diary – It’s right there on the label so it must be a real thing: jeep ducks.

Apparently it’s a thing between owners of jeeps. They leave little yellow plastic duckies on the hoods of other jeeps. Why? Because they’re quackers!

Dear Diary – I’m still fighting with Angus and losing. After starting to widen the entranceway to the cardboard box I installed to contain his hay pile and make my life easier, he regrouped. First, he planted the entry way to his igloo to the entryway of the box, so he could slowly drag the pile into his igloo. I guess he thought if he can’t get the igloo in the box…

But he wasn’t satisfied with that.

It must have taken him all night, but he chewed the corner of the box so that the cardboard between the corner and the entryway would like flat. Hay was strewn across the his entire patio. I think he even took delight in flinging it beyond the bars of his cage.

With his new-found sense of rebellion, Angus is more demanding and less inclined to be nice to get what he wants. The teenage years have begun…he just doesn’t realize he’s met his match!

Dear Diary – The sign was right there in the store, so I put on some lipstick and my best come hither look…

…but no one tried to pick me up.

Not even Hubby.

I love everybody. Some I love to be around. Some I love to avoid. Others I’d love to punch in the face.