My cooking fiasco & how to clean burnt stainless steel pot or pan

Gahhh! I just can't let myself multitask when I'm cooking! It always results in disaster. Whether its typing up a blog post or texting a friend I always end up burning something! I really am a good cook - I just get distracted and lose track of time; I've had this problem my whole life. I remember getting in trouble as a teenager when I was on morning baking duty at my parents' café because I was trying to prep something else while the cookies where in the oven and wouldn't realise how many minutes had passed, and would ruin 3-4 dozen at a time. Now its my poor pup who pays the price and makes me feel guilty when I burn something: At least he has an excellent instinct about running away from smoke!

Le Creuset Cookware Arrived

I am beyond ecstatic! I entered a contest this summer and: Oh! I won! And this evening they arrived in the mail! It was like Christmas morning but two weeks early! I couldn't wait to use them and used them to make these great chicken, mushroom and rice stuffed butternut squashes for dinner tonight (will post recipe tomorrow).  But I just have to brag and show off my new cookware that I am super excited about. They worked amazingly for dinner! (I'm currently waiting for the rice to cook as I type this.) I used the fry pan to brown the ground chicken, and the 2 qt sauce pan with lid to make the filling.

Here is what I won:

Tri-Ply Stainless Steel 2 Qt Covered Saucepan

Tri-Ply Stainless Steel 9.5" Fry Pan

Expect to see more Le Creuset in my future postings! I love their high quality and beautiful design and have several of their bakeware pieces already. (Just bummed they discontinued the Caribbean colour before I could get them all.)

2013 Blog Goal

I know that the premise of my blog is about living life spherically and moderately, but I want have a baking focus for this coming year. I'm frustrated with the challenges of baking gluten free but since I now need to do so, I want to get good at it. Its not so much about eating baked goods, but rather that I just plain like baking whether I eat the results or not - baking is fun!

Coconut Milk in a Pinch

I was baking some muffins today when I suddenly realized that I had absolutely no milk in the house at all! I usually at least have one can of coconut milk in the cabinet for just in case, but not today. So I had to do some quick thinking, and luckily I had a bag of shredded coconut in the freezer, thus I made some coconut milk from scratch real quick to be able to finish my muffins.

Whole Grain Gluten Free Soufflé Experiment

This morning I had leftover batter from the Whole Grain Gluten Free Pancakes I made yesterday, but wasn't in the mood for pancakes today, so I used the leftovers in a little experiment. They turned out better than I expected! But I still want to develop these into a healthy whole grain breakfast cupcakes version (of course I'll post the finalized recipe when I get it all figured out).