Anne Sullivan Ain't Got Nothin' on Val!

Whew! It's slow going tonight. My typing is not up to par, what with my arm hurting from patting myself on the back.

I had the most scathingly brilliant idea to whip up a pot of sausage, cabbage, and potatoes for supper. I started hacking up the ingredients (let the record show that it was hacking in the manner of chopping items into smaller pieces, not hacking in the manner of expelling a lung with a cough, or hacking in the manner of stealing personal information from secure accounts) this afternoon. I let that rib-sticker simmer for a while. All that I needed this evening was a tray of Jiffy corn muffins. Surely you don't think Val bakes from scratch.

Around 5:50 p.m., as I was stalling in the recliner before ascending to the main level to start my muffins, reality got me in a headlock, gave me a noogie, then tweaked my nose. We had not a single drop of milk in the house. It's not like I can send The Pony down to the corner market for a gallon. Nor can I send him out to milk a goat. I did, however, order him to get on the internet and see what we might have that can substitute for milk in a corn muffin recipe.

Huh. Little Mr. Biscuit-Gravy Stirrer was of no help at all. First, he claimed that his internet was not working. Such a coincidence, after working all day and night continuously, even when mine is down occasionally for the cloud cover. Finally, he said that there was absolutely nothing that could substitute for milk. And that, specifically, I should NOT try water.

So I did what any milkless woman in a corn muffin crisis would do, and called my mom. "Oh. Some recipes say to use milk OR water. No? Do you want me to go upstairs and look in my Betty Crocker cookbook? Okay. Stay on the phone. I'll pick up in the kitchen...Are you there? This says you can use condensed milk to replace one cup of milk, at the rate of half a cup of condensed milk and half a cup of water. Do you have condensed milk? Okay. It says you can use evaporated milk. Oh. Or it says you can use powdered milk..."

"Mom. If I don't have real milk, I sure don't have condensed, evaporated, or powdered milk. That is not really substituting. That's just adding water to already-milk. I don't know what I'll do. I think I'll try sour cream. It comes from milk. I'll use half sour cream and half water. Thanks anyway."

So I tried it, and it worked. The corn muffins came out fine, if slightly less dense than when made with milk. You know what I want to say? "That's it. I did it. I'm a miracle worker." Yeah. I totally stole that line from the scene in Not Another Teen Movie when Mia Kirshner transforms Chyler Leigh from an ugly duckling into a beautiful swan. Okay. She's not really a bird of any kind. But she goes from hideous to date-worthy by removing her glasses and taking her hair out of a ponytail. Here's the clip, but be forewarned that there is gratuitous profanity in the beginning.

Now I need to write to Betty Crocker and let her know that her red-plaid-covered cookbook is in need of an update. I'll bet she has people to answer her mail.