I have always known that I was not destined for culinary greatness. Actually, I'm not even destined for culinary mediocrity. Many of my attempts in the kitchen are disasters, like the time I microwaved the butter with the wrapper still on (the cookbook said "1 stick butter- softened"! And who knew that butter could catch fire like that), or the cookies I made that were so bad even the dog wouldn't eat them. Nowadays, though, I like to think that I am capable enough to feed myself, and I can make a great no-bake peanut butter pie, my one trick for when I'm invited to potlucks or anything else where one is supposed to bring a home-baked good.

All that aside, today I had one of the funniest adventures in cooking in a long time. I decided that I wanted to make a chocolate shake, an idea that both my mom and my sister seconded. I'm not sure if making a milkshake counts as "cooking", because I always thought that you had to at least have the option of burning something for the whole escapade to be an "adventure in cooking".

Anyways, I started to go around the kitchen, gathering ingredients. Chocolate ice cream- check. Milk- check. Ice- check. Chocolate syrup- ... No chocolate syrup. My mom insisted we could make a shake without chocolate syrup, so we decided to go ahead with plans, substituting cocoa powder for syrup. As it turns out, cocoa powder has a much more bitter taste than choclate syrup, especially when blended into ice cream.

After much searching for a more acceptable substitute, we finally listened to my sister's wacky idea- melt some milk chocolate. Unfortunately, the only chocolate we really had was an unopened chocolate rabbit from last Easter. Into the microwave with you, bunny!

Has anyone else tried to melt chocolate in the microwave? It takes *forever*. We finally got frustrated and just stuck the bunny bits into the blender, but not after burning parts of the bunny- it's extremities, mostly- in the microwave (hey, I guess this counts as an adventure in cooking, after all!).  Long story short, I sit here, typing and drinking a milkshake with mini-chocolate-bunny chunks. Ahhh, adventures in cooking.