Since I’m trying to dial back the starch and sugar in my diet, and have a bunch of family members with restrictions, I often prowl for recipes. I found one especially promising dessert online. No sugar or grain? Why, that would work for everyone except the vegans! And it sounded really delicious. I give you…

Sugar-Free Pumpkin Brownies (Click here for the recipe!)

Photo credit: SugarFreeLondoner.com
Check out her website for this and more sugar-free goodness!

Some of our church friends were to have a potluck at our house. Our group includes a grain-free couple, so I signed myself up for the Pumpkin Brownies along with the main dish.

Since there’d be a dozen of us, I decided to increase the small-pan recipe by 50%. I’m quite confident in my ability to do this, as you’ll know if you read my Banana-Bread Math story.

I rushed around the kitchen, adapting the amount of each ingredient in my head… on the fly… including some odd amounts, like 1/3 cup plus 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder.

The only way to accurately increase 1/3 cup plus 3 tablespoons by half is to convert the measurement into teaspoons, add half the number of teaspoons, and convert the resulting (large) number back into cups or fractions thereof.

I was on that math like burnt sugar on a pie pan.

Took me FOR. EVER.

At long last, I popped the brownie pan into the oven and hustled the main dish together. The brownies looked slightly flat when I removed them from the oven, but I chalked it up to the different size pan. Maybe 50% was a little short. Whatever.

Everyone arrived, we ate dinner, then it was time for dessert.

I opened the fridge to grab the whipped topping and there, on the same shelf, was a partial can of pumpkin. The pumpkin I was going to finish off before I opened the new can.

For the brownies.

Uh-ohhhh… (Checks pantry. New can has been put back.) … “AAAAH! I left out the Pumpkin!“

They weren’t terrible, but they lacked a certain something. Like the main ingredient.

Later, I reminded Brent about the newlywed Tuna-Noodle Casserole (no tuna) that I’d been trying to live down since 1979.

That reminded me of the Chicken Pot Pie with my freehand chicken cutout in the top crust instead of the usual three slits. You guessed it–I forgot the chicken. Ha, that was in 1999.

“Now it’s 2019. So, every twenty years….”

Brent: “That’s creepy. And did you notice the missing ingredient is always in the name?”

I can hardly wait to see what I come up with for 2039.

Thanks for reading,
Jan