Well, it's April 1...April Fool's Day.
Yesterday was the day I felt like a fool. Guests for Easter Sunday dinner, I decided to try some new recipes.
Never, ever do that.
I was looking online for crockpot, or slow cooker, recipes so that we could go to church and have dinner cooking itself. I found several ham recipes and several scalloped potato recipes that made it difficult to even choose between them. They all sounded great.
I chose a ham recipe that called for maple syrup and pineapple juice. It was reported to be the best ham ever!
Using half the time called for in the recipe, it was overcooked and dry, and had lost its color. The only thing that saved it was spooning the juices from the crockpot over the sliced ham on your plate.
On to the scalloped potatoes. The recipe I selected called for a cheese sauce. Now who could go wrong with a cheese sauce? It cooked up beautifully, so rich and creamy. Poured over the thinly sliced potatoes, it looked great going into the crockpot. Smelled good, too.
The result was awful. The sauce turned into paste, the potatoes turned brown, and again, using half the time called for, they were way overdone.
I had made a Jell-O salad in individual molds. That's about as artistic as I get. No matter what I tried (yes, the warm cloth over the molds, letting them set out at room temperature, running a hot knife around the edges), they would not unmold. I finally shook them out and they ended up looking like little blobs on a leaf of lettuce.
As our guests thanked us and said everything was delicious, I felt like the April Fool.
Thankfully, the deviled eggs turned out (it took 16 eggs to get 10 perfect ones), and the dessert was to die for...angel food cake with a can of crushed pineapple, frosted with whipped cream, topped with coconut.
Maybe our friends will just remember the dessert.
