Murphy's Law and Life

Murphy's Law states, "If anything can go wrong, it will." This is also the first rule of two of my favorite things in life - computers and cooking.

I have worked with computers for over half my life. In that time, I have determined that Murphy MUST have been thinking forward, into the future, when he wrote his saying. Anyone who has worked with a computer very much is aware how stubborn the computer can be when you NEED it to work. This evening I was working on a PC at my church. This computer is in bad need of a complete clean up, but unfortunately nobody knows where the cd key or original windows disc is, so reinstallation is out of the picture - unless NEW copies of the software are bought. Add to this the fact that the media software we are using is very resource intensive, and you have a mix for problems.

I kept having program crashes until I finally determined that the problem was a corrupt video file that I kept trying to load. I was saving every so often, but the darned thing kept crashing. After I figured out what the problem was, I found out they aren't going to be using the video clip tomorrow after all. This is definitely Murphy in action.

In the cooking arena - I am sure someone can relate to this - I have had more than once that I started to make a dish that had very specific ingredients that could not be replaced or substituted, and the item either got used by someone else in the house, or it spoiled, and is unusable. It is times like this I feel like Charlie Brown - AAARGH!!

My wife was making a cake for her co-workers and she had a problem with the cake not coming out of the pan. When it FINALLY did, it came out in pieces. She had bought a very large can of frosting, which she assumed would cover the entire cake with some left over. With the cake being busted up, the icing was consumed rapidly, and she still had half the cake to go. Oh well, no problem, let's just make some chocolate frosting to cover the rest of the cake. This is fine, if you have cocoa powder or some blocks of bittersweet chocolate - which we did not have. She thought she could use some of the Almond Bark in the cabinet. For those who don't know, Almond Bark and other candies like it, are used to coat pretzels, nuts, and just about everything during the holiday season. It cannot bu used as an icing and it cannot be thinned with water or milk, only with solid vegetable shortening - Yuck! Needless to say, our FAMILY ended up eating this particular cake.

I don't know about you, but Murphy sure does hang around a LOT at our house.

While on the topic of Almond Bark here is a simple recipe to make the bad things disappear - for now, at least.

Ingredients:

2 Squares of vanilla or chocolate almond bark candy (or equivalent)
1 Cup of dry roasted almonds (salted or unsalted)

Directions:

1. Place candy in microwave safe cup.
2. Measure out one cup of Almonds in another heat-resistant cup.
   
3. Heat candy in microwave for approximately 2 minutes and 30 seconds, stopping at 1 minute and at 2 minutes. (You don't want the candy to get too hot, it will burn.)
   
4. Remove from microwave and stir to liquify
5. Pour over the almonds, stirring quickly to mix the two items together well
6. Place some wax paper on a cookie sheet or other flat surface, such as a cutting board.
7. Pour the mixture on the wax paper to cool.
8. After cooling, break into small pieces
9. Enjoy!

Here is a slideshow of the recipe - note the high tech, high dollar equipment being used. Only the best at Crabby's Kitchens!!



I hope you enjoy the recipe and have a Super Day, and God Bless!