Never Bake With The Three Lieutenants

Cooking blogs. There are some really great ones out in the blogsphere. The ones written by regular people who love to cook and love to share their baking advice, so they write about their friendly relationship with their oven. Every ingredient looking edible. Every recipe is explained in detail. Every meal is photographed in the perfect light.

If I wrote a cooking blog, it would NOT be this type of blog. The featured attraction would be my many tragedies (and few triumphs) in the kitchen. I would joke about how Benny will never get fat on my cooking. Even though I don't write a cooking blog, I'm going to write about my latest blunder, tonight's meal: grilled Alaskan salmon and butternut souffle.

The salmon wasn't the issue. The butternut souffle was the problem child. I found the recipe in the CEC/Seabee Can Do Cookbook. This cookbook is a compilation of recipes submitted by military husbands, wives, retired military and active duty officers.

I adore my Can Do cookbook. There are more international recipes than your typical Iowa church cookbook. It's fun to see the names of friends and attempt to create a cheesecake that you ate at a Navy potluck five years ago. In short, I had faith in this Butternut Souffle recipe.

Doubt entered my brain when Benny, Olivia and I were assembling the souffle. The recipe seemed to be missing key information (for example, the size of the baking dish) and specific directions (it never said when to add the baked squash to sugar, milk, egg, butter, and vanilla mixture.)

But the author of this recipe wasn't just one person. It was three people. It said "Three Lieutenants" and then listed the ladies by name. Ha, ha. Three Lieutenants. It's like the Three Amigos. Hilarious.

Then Benny notices the names. He knows one of the ladies. He sends her a Facebook message giving her a hard time about the recipe. The next thing I hear is laughing from the living room. A baker (even a bad baker like myself) doesn't want to hear laughing when waiting for recipe hints.

The woman told Benny she doesn't know anything about that recipe. She doesn't even know if it's good or not. She tells Benny that Olivia should NOT eat it, in case it's bad. Apparently this Three Lieutenant thing is some kind of joke that was submitted by not three, not two, but only one of the lieutenants.

It's funny for them. Not funny for a starving pregnant woman and a hungry toddler.

This is how the souffle turned out.

Would you eat this?

Does this look good? Benny picked it apart with his fork. We decided to pass on this recipe. I reheated broccoli spears and leftover Stovetop stuffing to accompany the fish.

It was a disappointing dinner. I had high hopes for this souffle. Benny says I only wanted to make it because souffle sounds fancy. There is a bit of truth in that joke. But I really thought it would turn out good. I'm putting my Can Do cookbook back on the shelf. I need some time to recoup, so I'm eating chocolate fudge that Superbaker Becky made with me on Wednesday. Drowning my baking disaster in chocolate.

I'm also avoiding a dessert recipe submitted by The "Three" Lieutenants.