Dinner at my house is a pain. I hate thinking about supper, I hate preparing supper and I especially hate cooking supper. And, yes, I even hate eating supper. I'm too busy. I don't have time for it. I'd rather just grab a quick bite to eat, nibble on something from the fridge, or even better yet, grab a prepared pizza at the local grocer. You see I'm not a huge connoisseur of good food. I'm not a fan of trying new things. I like my old trusted and trues.
First, I lacked one of the ingredients. It called for chile sauce and I didn't have any in the cupboard so we decided to switch it with a sauce we did have. My hubby picked out one called Kansas City Style Smokey Barbecue Sauce. Sounds yummy, doesn't it? It actually was a pretty good choice. That wasn't where I messed up. It was the part where I read "1/3 lb of brown sugar".
1/3 pound of brown sugar?! Like, isn't that an awful lot of brown sugar? And who measured brown sugar like that? I went back to my computer to see if anyone had left comments on this 1/3 pound of brown sugar and found noone had, so I headed back into the kitchen to grumble to my hubby that I had no idea how to convert pounds into cups. Being a butcher and apparently converting pounds to cups is part of his daily duties, informed me that it equalled two cups.
Oh my God! TWO CUPS! Wow---but okay. So in went the two cups of brown sugar. Then I came across the next ingredient. 1/3 lb of lemon juice. There it was again. 1/3 pound of lemon juice. I wondered if the author was British or something but grabbed my measuring cup and the lemon juice my hubby passed me from the fridge. Wait a sec....why do I have lemon juice in my fridge? Must have been for some past Christmas baking. Past alright----the best before date read September 10, 2008. Ya right....
So we ditched the lemon juice you'll be happy to know and went in search of a replacement flavour. I came up with mustard. At last I had all my ingredients in the bowl and was about to mix them together when I glanced at the recipe again and notice something. I lean in close, squint my eyes and reread "1/3 tb lemon juice". Ohhh, well that made more sense----oh geez, hold the phone. I reread "1/3 tb brown sugar". Yep, that's right. 1/3 teaspoon of brown sugar (though I really think she meant tablespoon---in my world I was taught a small t was for teaspoon and a capital T for tablespoon). Anyway, I glance at my bowl of mustard and ketchup and sauces.---and my 1/3 pound of brown sugar.
Only I would mess up that stupidly. Trying to salvage my concauction, I scooped out as much of the brown sugar I could and doubled the ketchup requirement. My brave hubby stuck his finger in the mix and gave it a taste test. He shrugged not bad and we went forward with it. Well he did, I went and sulked in the chicken yard with my little friends.