Cooking Advice

I'm not a big cooking guy. Perhaps I have my moments, but in general, I wouldn't put cooking among my top skill sets.

Today I was making a batch of Rice Crispy Treats. As everyone knows, there's not a lot to it. I melted the butter, then melted the marshmallows, then poured in the cereal. I stired the whole thing and then put it in a pan. Then I went to get some wax paper to push it in the pan.

We had no wax paper.

At first glance I thought, "Mey, I'll just push it in with the spoon."

This was extremely ineffective. The gooey treat kept sticking to the spoon and pulling OUT of the pan. Then I thought that I'd just use my hands, except that I've learned since being married that other people don't like to have their food touched with bare, unwashed hands. I was in a horrible situation in that I basically had a whole tray of Rice Crispy treats that would just go to waste unless I innovated. My alter ego, MattGyver sprung into action.

I first found a piece of sturdy cardstock photoprinter paper. I folded it in half and covered it tightly with a pair of my wife's pantyhose (sorry Jenn!). Then I found a blue crayon and tore off the paper wrapper so I could maximize the surface contact area. I frantically rubbed the blue crayon onto the pantyhose covered paper, which absorbed a considerable amount of this (non-toxic!) wax. This paper / leggings / crayon contraption had nearly identical properties to wax paper. I pressed the Rice Crispy treats into the pan, and there was no sticking at all!

The problem, of course, is that the rice crispys were now... Smurf Cripys. Oops.

Now for those of you that are laughing at my failed prototype, you have to understand that I'm an engineer. An engineer with a sense of humor... who made that last part up. I did find a creative solution, but it was much less glamorous.

Real Solution: I had an empty bag of Rice Crispys cereal. This bag has a similar material property to wax paper - I used the bag to press the rice crispy treats into the pan without having it stick! I was amazed. I feel like this was a food hacking trick that I discovered all by myself, and this whole adventure fits exceptionally well into a blog like mine.