Two Down and One and a Half to Go....or Win Some and Lose Some

Conference was marvelous today.  I watched the Women's Broadcast at 4 with the young sisters and the session at 6 with about 24 YSAs - both at the center.

I actually listened to the general session, because I was in the kitchen working on the meal and it came through loud and clear. It was very nice because I listen better if my hands are busy....I don't drift off into neverland.  The meal was kind of simple, but true to form....I unsimplified it towards the end....not too bad....I just heated the left over vegetables from Thursday night's meal.  They were frozen, but I thought it would be a good thing to get out of the freezer.

We had hot dogs....I put them in the crockpot at 4:30 and we served them at 8:15 and they were really very tasty.  I also had baking potatoes in the oven wrapped in aluminum foil.  I put out a bunch of toppings for the potatoes as well as the hot dogs.  They got eaten mostly....we had a lot of potatoes left, but I think that is because there were a lot to start with.

I heated up a can of saurkraut (from Germany) and no one....NO ONE liked it.  I thought a lot of people had it on their hot dogs, and I am just sure that I have seen that as an option at the hot dog stands, but one of the young people said, "Sister Madsen, that is not a Danish thing."  We had a good laugh over it.  It is a good thing that can was relatively inexpensive.

I also found a recipe for cucumber salad that I thought would be enormously popular.  It was similar to what my mother used to fix.  Sliced cucumbers in a mixture of sugar, vinegar and dill.  I thought it was rather tasty.  But in the first place, it looked rather unappetizing.  It looked like cucumber slices swimming in grass clippings.  In the second place I think many thought it was a topping for the hot dogs and steadfastly avoided it.  And in the third place, I think a number wondered why I would do that to innocent little cucumbers.  The final result was that we had a lot of cucumber salad left....as in all of it.

I thought the dessert would be the best part of the meal.  A pizzookie....you know...a giant chocolate chip cookie baked in a pizza pan, sliced into wedges and each served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

The cookies batter tasted soooooooo good.  I put it in the oven as soon as we had gotten all the other food on the table and people had begun to eat.  A little while later one of the YW said "Sister Madsen the pizzookie is burning."  I looked in and sure enough there was smoke in the oven and the center top of the pizzookie was dark dark brown....and the outside edges were dough.

I pulled it out and realized that I had wrongly set the oven on microwave instead of convection!!!  The chocolate chips were expensive and the nuts were expensive and the dough was so good....what a disappointment.  I put it in the regular oven and baked it for about 8 minutes....pulled it out, cut it into servings (except for the center where it had burned) and topped each with ice cream.   We served it fast while it was still very warm, and that helped a lot.  We had run out before I realized that they  enjoyed it.

I had REAL vanilla in them!  What a waste.  I'll have to try that recipe again real soon and make sure I set the oven correctly.. if they liked the pizzookie tonight, imagine what they would think if I did it right.

Oh well....I had some wonderful conversations with several YSAs, and I loved conference.  I think that made it a good day.