Cooking is Always an Adventure...

...especially when it's my dad who's in the kitchen!

Don't get me wrong.  My dad is actually a great cook.  I was fortunate to learn a lot of great cooking ideas and techniques from both my mom and my dad.  From my mom, I learned how to read recipes and be exact with measurements to create some delicious meals.  From my dad, I learned how to "go with the flow" and be a bit spontaneous in the kitchen.

My dad's cooking spontaneity has resulted in some interesting (but tasty) recipes over the years.  Who would have ever thought that red-spotted catfish would be good?  Bake some catfish in the oven.  Shake the bottle of Frank's Red Hot over the baked fish.  Presto.  Dinner is served.  Want a perfect turkey?  Just sprinkle some cajun seasonings on the outside of the turkey.  Voila!  You have a yummy turkey and drippings to make fantastic gravy.

Hmm...perhaps what I've learned from my dad is to just throw a ton of spicy seasoning on top of things, so that if it turns out bad, no one ever knows because they only taste the spice...

With my dad and Wendy in town for the weekend, I was more than willing to turn my kitchen over to my dad for the evening.  A night off from cooking is always welcomed around here!

But, to say that it's been an interesting night is an understatement.  So far, my dad has managed to clog our kitchen sink.  Turns out you can NOT shove tons of random stuff into the garbage disposal and expect it to survive.

Then there was the cake.  Dad's birthday was back in October and the kids promised him that the next time we saw him, they'd make him a birthday cake.  We made a beautiful yellow/chocolate marble cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles.  We were eying the cake all day, waiting to dive into it after dessert, until my dad got into the kitchen.  When you drop a jar of garlic powder onto the top of a cake, sometimes the lid flies open, leaving you with a new type of cake.  And really, who doesn't love a piece of garlic-chocolate marble cake?

 Turns out that hundreds of specks of garlic powder are pretty hard to remove from chocolate frosting.  Coincidentally, garlic-chocolate marble cake actually tastes great when you first put it in your mouth.  Moist cake, yummy chocolaty goodness...it's all great until that garlic aftertaste kicks in...

Since things were going so smoothly with food for the humans in the house, dad figured he'd move to the dog next.  He lovingly cooked Sydney up some leftovers from the chicken we had roasting in the oven.  She devoured them, and then promptly threw everything up all over my floor.  Fun times...

But, at least I got a night off from cooking, right?!?!?