Substitute

"To open - gracefully tear along perforations."
Maybe it's okay for the junk mail advertising writers to try and convince me that I am a, "Gourmet Asian Food Lover," but I'm not sure I like my pseudo yoga clothing delivery bag telling me how I should open it.
Last week C made a cake from scratch using his own recipe. I had to remind him to put in baking soda (he decided to put in both soda and powder just to be on the safe side) but let's just say the cake came out good enough to eat - which we did.
Unlike adults, kids have no fear of failure, which is a great thing when baking a cake from scratch but not so great when it comes to less safe behaviors. If I'm lucky he'll be so busy with his culinary curiosities he won't want to get his driver's license until he's 25.
They say that necessity is the mother of invention but I have found that stupidity is invention's mother more often than not. Today's list of things to do included making peanut butter cookies. I doubled the recipe, because what is the point of three dozen cookies, but when I mixed everything up it looked suspiciously dry. I didn't have enough flour to start over again so I poured in some milk. Then I poured in some more. Then I put the first cookie sheet in the oven. Ten minutes later I had cookies, kinda lumpy but not too bad. S ate one without complaining.
Then I decided to go in for some more mood-enhancing tea but the tea was cold and there's nothing less good-mood enhancing than cold tea so I opened the door to put it in the microwave. Voila! A bowl full of butter - proving that you can get out all the ingredients but that doesn't mean all the ingredients will make it into the cookies.
Hence I discovered through sheer stupidity, that it's possible to substitute milk for butter without dire consequences when making peanut butter cookies.

song: Substitute • artist: The Who