Extreme creativity in the kitchen or how to make something out of nothing, literally.

Rule number one of baking/cooking (unless experimental), MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ALL YOUR INGREDIENTS ON HAND. Something I should definetly know, and to be honest, Im usually pretty spot on as to what I have on hand and how much of I have. Except I apparently had a major brain fart tonight.

So I started baking for my Christmas gifts and I wanted to make cranberry orange muffins, something I know how to do by heart because Ive made them so often and easily have all the ingredients in my pantry any time any day. Except I think that someone came into my kitchen and stole my ingredients because it was one mess after another.

First off, you obviously need cranberries and orange juice (and zest) to make these muffins. Look into the pantry, WHERE ARE ALL MY CRANBERRIES? I had maybe half a cup left? Lovely. So I decided to substitute what was missing with chopped dried apricots, not a big deal, seemed a good combination. Then looked in the fridge for oj or oranges... WHERE ARE ALL MY ORANGES? All gone. I couldn`t believe it. Not even a juice box, frozen orange juice, nothing, nada, zip. WTF. So I took the next best thing, tangerines. Yup, I literally squeezed a cup of juice from tiny little tangerines, as well as 1 tbsp of zest (which by the way is nothing like orange zest). Now if thats not dedication to the spirit of baking, I dont know what is.

So I finally pull the recipe together, and am missing just one ingredients, dark chocolate. Now I know for a fact that we have some because I... just.. bought... some. WHERE IS MY CHOCOLAAATEEE? Nope. Life was just kicking me while I was down. I turned my whole pantry upside down to find something similar to chocolate. I would have taken cookies and crumbled them up, or used dates as I sometimes find they taste as sweet as chocolate, but no. Dry like the desert. The only thing I had that was available, was our chocolate calendars. So in the pot they went. 10 tiny little pieces of chocolate (I stole Jeff`s too) that I crushed and then added.

What? Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the greater good.

Anyways, my cranberry orange muffins turned into tangerine cranberry apricot chocolate calendar muffins. And you know what? They were pretty darn tasty, so FU WORLD.