About

IMG_2944Five years ago, I started this blog with the introduction:  “I’m Hope, and I ruin food.”

Over the course of many months, I taught myself how to cook.  I read books, I watched videos, I griped to my mom as she gave me advice over shots of vodka, and eventually I got to the point where I wasn’t “bad.”  I also wasn’t “great,” but it sounds better to say “not bad.”

Just when I thought I could pass as a decent cook, my daughter was diagnosed with serious allergies to dairy, eggs, peanuts, and most recently, pumpkin.  We first discovered these allergies because I was eating these things while breastfeeding and she was reacting to them passing into my milk.  Now she’s a toddler and she LOVES to eat, but cooking isn’t the simple task it used to be.  I’m learning to cook all over again as I stumble through the world of alternative milks, vegan cheeses, and flax seed eggs.

Also, I still can’t cook potatoes worth shit.

 

I hope you kick back and stay awhile.  I’d offer you some cookies, but I’ve most likely burned them.

———–

Find me on:
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest

13 thoughts on “About”

  1. I’m glad you’re fighting the culinary fight. I can only brown ground hamburger meat, or make scrambled eggs. I mean they’re good scrambled eggs, but still. Lead on!

    Like

    Reply

  3. “If you give me chocolate cake, I’ll be your friend forever.”

    Dead Simple Chuck It All Together Chocolate Cake.

    1 2/3 cups flour
    1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
    1 1/2 cups sugar
    2/3 cup cocoa powder
    1 teaspoon salt
    1 1/2 cups milk
    100 g (3 1/2 oz) melted butter
    2 eggs
    1 teaspoon vanilla

    1. Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F)

    2. Grease 20cm springform pan, line with greaseproof baking paper.

    3. Put all ingredients into a processor and mix.

    4. Pour into baking pan.

    5. Bake for 50 minutes, ..is time measured the same way in the US or do you have to convert according to time zones?
    (Centre should spring back, and skewer comes out clean)

    6. Cool, and ice… (frost whatever ya call it..)

    100 g (3 1/2 oz) butter
    250 g (8.81849 oz or 1 cup) icing sugar…(powdered sugar)
    1/3 cup of cocoa
    Milk to mix
    1 teaspoon vanilla

    Beat butter and dry ingredients until combined, add milk, teaspoon by teaspoon, until you have a thickish, soft, spreadable, delectable icing. Use 1/3 to fill sliced cake, and the rest as icing. Refrigerate till set.

    *OK I can’t claim this recipe, but this is the stock standard chocolate cake that my wife bakes, and it is an awesome chocolate cake, rich, dark and handsome… opps moist..

    Like

    Reply

  6. I think we might just be the same person. I can’t cook (mainly because my boyfriend is terrified and disgusted at the prospect of eating Mac and Cheese from a box) and I like grammar. You could say I’m a grammar nazi in training.

    And I love your header! And Sedaris is phenomenal.

    Like

    Reply

Comment