I'm Fired!

You know the saying:  "You only had ONE job to do, and you blew it!"
What happens if you mess up that one job three months in a row?  I think I need to fire myself.

My church provides something called Free Lunch Saturday on the last Saturday of each month.  (The volunteers who work the event call it Last Saturday Lunch.  I will call it LSL.)  It is open to the public, offering a well-balanced meal--entree, veggies or fruit, some kind of bread, dessert, and drink--to anyone who walks in the door.  There is also a fairly large contingent of meals that are delivered to the homes of people in need who have been put on a list.  (Last year at this time, because I was on crutches due to a torn meniscus in my knee and resultant surgery, my friend Judy put me on the list.  I was sooo happy to see those meals come in!  And when I got back on solid footing again, I had myself removed from the list so that the ministry could better serve those who needed it more.)

The ministry provides the meals.  Volunteers provide the desserts.  Since I don't contribute all that much to my church financially, I try to make up for it by giving what I can by way of other things that I can handle--like baking desserts for LSL.  Making a dessert for one occasion per month doesn't seem like much, but what I haven't explained is that I am mostly a failure at baking desserts!

What the LSL ministry wants is a dessert that will yield 12 servings.  Usually, that means two pies or a 9x13 pan of something.  I don't do pies.  Gave them up many years ago because I found them to be labor-intensive and never, ever, matched my mother's.  (My excuse:  I was a working single mother for a lot of years.  No time for that nonsense.)  For the last two years, I have used boring cake mixes with boring canned frosting, while I observe other glorious desserts being taken into the church kitchen.  Oh, sure...I have all kinds of wonderful recipes.  They just require all kinds of wonderful effort.  Had I ever been a confident baker, I could rely on my past skills during my retirement now.  I confess that I never was a confident baker.

Case in point:  As a young bride in the late 60s, I attempted to make homemade shortcakes for a strawberry shortcake dessert.  The resulting shortcake biscuits were so salty, the whole dessert was inedible.  When I told my mom about it, she asked about what kind of flour I had used.  Whaaat?  There are different kinds of flour?  I checked the bag.  I had bought self-rising flour--loaded with salt.

Another case in point:  Baking a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving--also late 60s--I put the filling into the crust and was ready to bake it all when I realized that I had left the sugar out of the filling.  Had to dump it all out of the crust and mix it all again.  Needless to say, it was a messy pie!

Fast forward 50 years to the LSL baking.
*Two months ago (January), I totally forgot that I had volunteered a dessert.  Remembered just as the desserts were due at the church.  Oops!
*One month ago (February), I decided to send lemon bars.  Had already baked the crust, then put the filling on top of the crust to return to the oven.  The sides of the disposable foil pan buckled, creating a moving wave of filling that spilled all over the door of my oven.  It was too late to start over, so I baked what I had and took the results to church.  I have no idea how they turned out, but I was mortified.
*This month--last night--I totally misread poorly-written instructions on a boxed mix for brownie/cookie bars.  The end result was that I only used half of what I should have and baked it according to full-recipe instructions.  What came out of the oven were thin, overcooked brownies without the cookie dough that was required to be baked on top.  No way to fix it.  I just sprinkled powdered sugar on top and took the pan to church without apology.  I mean, how often can you apologize for what you are offering without feeling like a total baking failure??

When I told my daughter about this little history with the baking, she seemed somewhat incredulous that I would even keep trying when I don't even like baking that much.  She's right, of course.  I can either drop out of the LSL baking ministry, or I can provide something store-bought.  (They don't mind.)  Obviously, what I am doing isn't working....

But...I make mean casseroles!  If they ever need those contributions, I'm good to go.
Sigh.