I am reminded of this, because Cartoonist, out of town, returning today, left notes on a recipe that she was working on. We had not been doing that, when we started, and although we had some horrid things that we didn’t want to do again, there were things we did want to duplicate.

I am notorious for not writing things down.  I always think I will remember, and granted, sometimes, I do, but most times, I don’t make whatever it is again for a while, and I look at the recipe in the book and realize that was not how I made it last time. I made some killer cranberry sauce, one year, based on two different recipes, with oranges, and lemons, and all sorts of good things, and everyone said “oh, make this again next year for Thanksgiving”. Did I write it down? Bugger all, I did not.

My favorite story of not taking notes on a recipe is one from my childhood. One summer, when my mother was working full time, and we had nothing else to do that summer, we four kids decided that we would cook. Every week, we would build up to what grand thing we would make to welcome our mother home. We often switched out ingredients, if we didn’t have them, though I have to say, most things we did have in the house.

One time, we had none of the ingredients we wanted to use for a cake. We didn’t have the right spices, or herbs or whatever it called for. We didn’t have the right sugar, or the right flour. We changed every single thing about the recipe, and just hoped it would be edible. We had no idea. We figured we had wasted our time, but we still presented it to our mother, with a big glass of water in case she had to wash it down. We waiting around her, as she took a bite, and said it was actually quite good. We couldn’t believe our luck, and tasted it, and said, yes, it was a fine cake.

But, of course, none of us had written down what we had changed, so we never able to recreate it again.

As I said, that did not teach me my lesson. It has taken this blog, realizing that I’ll have to write how I made what I did, that has gotten me to take notes.

Better late then never.

However, once I got it home, don’t know why I didn’t look at it more, I discovered that half the ingredients in her recipes were pre-packages, pre-processed food. For example her lemonade calls for 2 packages of sugar free lemonade powdered drink mix, lemon lime soda, 4 frozen strawberries and 1 package of sweetener.

I never did make any of the recipies in that book. I was so annoyed, that since that purchase, I have tried to make sure that everything in the cookbook I’m buying is to make stuff, not to just put packages together.

So I was surprised when Baby Cakes, a cook book which I love to look at, but haven’t made as much out of as I have Broccoli Forest, had one of those traps. I found a recipe for Macaroons, which I love, so went to look at it. It had four ingredients listed on the side.

• 1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1/4 cu of agave
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
• and 1 cup vanilla, chocolate, or red velvet crumb base (see pages 115-116).

OK, I thought, that doesn’t sound so bad, so I went to page 115-116.  So, Vanilla Crumb base consists of

• 3 tablespoons coconut oil
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• and 6 unfrosted vanilla cupcakes (see page 86)

So, I turned to page 86, not having even begun the macaroons. And there I find out how much I have to mix together, just to get to the macarrons.

So, Baby Cakes is telling me I have to make vanilla cupcakes, then with the left overs, make a crumb base, and then make the macroons. Wow. Someone thinks we all have way  more time on our hands then we do.

One day, when I have a day or two to spend, i will make that oh so easy-to-make macaroons, and write about it.