Pris, thanks for giving me my smile for the day. It's one of those days I needed one. I have found it to be the case that the messiest cooks are usually the one who enjoy it the most. My Mama was the best cook I ever knew and she managed to dirty every pot/pan/dish in the house when she put on a spread. The biggest difference between her and me is that she enjoyed washing them after it was over. My dining room and kitchen are one big room. There used to be a wall between the two, but was removed when my husband remodeled. Being in the country, we also greet all our visitors from the back door. There wasn't even a PATH to the front door until we put one in. So, my kitchen is not only visible to everyone who makes it through the solarium to my back door, but the kitchen is where most of our guests and family congregates. The living room usually sits dark and empty when there are people around. I actually thank God that I am not too anal about cooking 'trails' because I'd be paranoid. Dirt, well that's another story. I mop every morning. But, I don't worry about flour trails, or apple peels hanging from a lamp shade. As for dogs and trails........that is what cracks me up. Mine has RADAR to any pile of anything on the floor. I can't even sweep my floor and make it to the dustpan before he awakens from a day long sleep just to walk through it.

rachelellen - I agree with you. Yorkshire Pudding wouldn't be YP without the "meat drippings". Several years ago in Oct. we were visiting some distant relatives (some had come in from England too) and they said they were celebrating Thanksgiving. They served a beef roast of some type (it wasn't a prime rib roast) and "YP" which was served from small muffin tins and you were lucky to get even one. Anyway, I asked for the recipe. "Don't you use beef drippings?" I asked. No - just "oil" she said. As I look back at this - I think she was serving "'popovers'". - but calling it Yorkshire Pudding. Two entirely different (in taste) although they look the same when baked in muffin tins. Prime rib/standing rib roast will yield the "best" tasting drippings. Using cake pans instead of one large pan was for even baking and height. I can't find the magazine right now -may have left it behind somewhere. But, you can look it up at the library -save some.bucks. It is not in the Nov/Dec issue. Maybe, in one of their sister magazines. I think we are all going to have "outstanding Yorkshire Pudding" :-) -gloria

Your BF never should have gotten into a relationship until he had worked out the issues he had with his ex-wife. It's not fair to you, him, or his daughter who is emotionally invested in you now. I suggest looking into getting him some kind of counseling. Meanwhile, while it is real easy to place all the blame on the ex-wife, just remember there are two sides to every story. I mean, many many people are emotionally and physically abused and yet they are able to start new relationships and are able to utter the words "I love you" with no problem. So it just seems a little too convenient to blame the ex-wife for all the hurtful things your BF says and does. This post was edited by Amber3902 on Fri, Feb 15, 13 at 18:27

I have some tried-and-true recipes for cakes that I could/should have made. I had made a good coffee cake once before with canned pears using a Penzey's recipe, but it called for chopped candied ginger which I didn't have and can't get locally. Since I knew the candied ginger was a big part of the cake's appeal, I tried googling a recipe that didn't rely on that ingredient. Hence the one I found, which had a great streusel top and I guess might even be a great cake made with fresh pears, but who knows if I will try that again. If I make a whole cake in a 10 inch springform pan for just myself and dad, it will mold before I can get it all used up. I know this because I have had umpteen cakes mold on me and even go bad in the freezer since I just can't eat them up fast enough. I have tried to find a definitive recipe for ginger pear muffins without a smashing success so far. As for the yogurt container being filled with cooked white beans, and not knowing I was out of brown sugar, that I can rack up to my crazy life where I am running around between my folks old house where my mom's stuff is, my dad's new condo where he is living, my apt. in another town, and the two storage places where the rest of my personal belongings are. I had just gotten brown sugar, but it was at my dad's condo, not my mom's old kitchen where I made the cake but the kitchens look somewhat alike and I got mixed up. I had two containers in my apt. fridge that were for yogurt. One was an old one I put the white beans in and didn't take time to label with masking tape, and the other was the real yogurt. I forgot about the beans and grabbed the wrong one. The rest was trying to kill too many birds with one stone, which I am guilty of lately since I have so many birds in the air around me! I was overly optimistic about how a little sugar and spice might counteract the lousy tasting pears. I am not just a scientist but an adventurer. It could have been an epic good tasting Rube Goldberg cake, but instead it was (thankfully) a marginal but not awful cake. The spinach dip was just the recipe from the back of the Knorr vegetable dip packet. Mom had it left over in the cupboard and I had the ingredients on hand to use it up, along with a bag of bagel chips. I don't normally use the Knorr veg. dip for spinach dip since it has MSG in it which I am mildly sensitive too, and WAY too much salt for my taste. The best part of the tea for me was the Edam cheese, which I almost never buy, it is too expensive!