I was reminded today of the time I had a bit of a cooking mishap a few years ago. I don’t believe myself to be a domestic goddess, but I had never done something quite like this before, and thankfully, not since.

It is my habit, once a week, to make pancakes for breakfast for the family. We were on holidays, staying in a cabin at a caravan park and I had brought with us the ingredients to make pancake breakfast while we were away. It is not rocket science – flour, eggs and milk – but I wanted to make sure we had the right things at our disposal.

As I was putting the elements together I remembered that I like to add a tablespoon of sugar to my mix, but I hadn’t packed any sugar. The only sugar I had was in a couple of small sachets the management leave in the cabin so you can sweeten your coffee or tea. And then I saw another bag with our foodstuffs. It was a snap lock bag of white powdery stuff and I assumed my husband or daughter had thought to include some sugar in our packing. I proceeded to add a heaped tablespoon into the mix and make the pancake batter.

Once I started cooking the pancakes I noticed they weren’t my usual light and fluffy golden discs and I put this down to the fact that I wasn’t in my normal cooking environment with the equipment I am familiar with.  Although disappointed, I knew it didn’t really matter as my family would still devour this breakfast option.

Pancakes made, we started to eat them and commented that they didn’t taste quite right either.  Not inedible, just different.  We were half way through breakfast when it suddenly dawned on me that the white powdery substance may not have been sugar after all, but the laundry washing powder my husband would’ve packed so we could do washing while we were away!  And it was!!  Fortunately our washing powder is an environmentally safe one and so has minimal risk of poisoning by ingestion.  It was the joke of the day about how I could think washing powder would improve our tried and true recipe for pancakes!  (it doesn’t!)

As grateful as I am that there were no adverse side effects for any of us from this kitchen accident, it was a handy reminder for me to not become complacent in life. The bible reminds me to “Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better to catch you napping.” 1 Peter 5:8 (The Message).

We can make snap judgments about many things and assumptions can cause many, many adverse situations in life, including the addition of unhelpful pancake ingredients. Be on your guard to avoid them.

Be blessed.