I’ve had two do overs recently, off-the-course Mulligans if you will. But I think that’s just life, sometimes you either have to start over or shift gears mid-stream and make the best of it. These aren’t life-altering events, mind you, just those little mishaps where you realize you goofed and then go with plan B.

The Christmas Card
While perusing custom-photo Christmas card templates on a number of websites, I found one on tinyprints.com that read Silent Night, Holy Night on the front. Perfect, I thought! On our cruise we took pictures of the sunset every night. So we had LOTS of pictures of sunsets that were picture perfect nearly every night.

The first photo I chose:

I thought it was beautiful, there was an island in the distance with interesting clouds and a bird flying through the middle of the frame. It was taken with a telephoto lens and while it was not the most crisp shot of the trip I thought it would translate well to print, especially for the smaller size of the card. Turns out, I was wrong. It didn’t translate. At all. The cards arrived looking fuzzy and dull. The original dark brown outline I had chosen didn’t help.

So I re-grouped. I went back through the photos and chose a new one that had more vibrant colors and the focal point of a lighthouse as we left the port of Livorno:

Using the same card I chose a light blue background color scheme, and semi-gloss paper vs the matte paper used on the original card. The first photo might have looked better on semi-gloss paper, but I didn’t want to risk it. In the end we were both pleased with the do-over card, and I’m thankful for website discounts that made the hit of a new order a little softer.

Flat Bread
My second goof up was with our bread maker. We don’t use it very often, though it does make tasty bread and is fairly simple to use…or so I thought. I put in all the ingredients for a three-cheese bread and punched in all the settings. But when it started I knew something was wrong based on it saying there was 1:45 left to go. Most loaves take around 3 hours to go through the full process.

Turns out I had put in the settings wrong and it was making just the dough without as many kneading/rising cycles as the recipe required. And of course without the cooking part. When it was done, I happened to be on the phone with my friend Lisa, and asked her advice. She said let it sit and see if it will rise. After about an hour and a half, with dinner growing later and later, I decided to shift gears.

I ended up rolling out the dough and following instructions for focaccia bread. I topped it with some chimichurri and shredded cheese, then put it in the oven hoping for the best. In the end, it was a great accompaniment to a simple tomato soup.

The next night we took the other half of the dough and baked it up as a small loaf. It didn’t rise much more while cooking, but still it was tasty. We sliced into it before I thought to get a photo, but here’s what was left:

For perspective, the dimensions of that dish are roughly 6” x 4.5”, as I said, it was a mini loaf.

While these weren’t huge issues in the grand scheme of things, they were good reminders not to sweat it when you have a mishap.

And just for kicks, here’s a couple of shots of a dinner that did not go wrong at all…last Saturday’s lasagna. The only do overs here were in the form of leftovers for a couple of days, with more to go in the freezer to enjoy another time!