Foodie Fluff: No, I don't know what I'm bringing to the potluck.

Had a typical cooking moment last night, which I think really sums up why I can never tell someone in advance what I'm bringing to a party or potluck.

Started out grabbing a pack of what I thought were d'anjou pears in the grocery store.
Wasn't hungry after riding, so I pulled two of them out to have a snack instead of dinner. Turns out they were Bartlett pears (yuck..mealy and bland).
Thought I could salvage the pears by slicing and shaking them up in a bag with cinnamon and sugar. Hey, why not? Works for apples.
Used WAY too much cinnamon.
Tried to dilute it with more sugar
Now pears are mealy, bland AND gritty.
Thought I might still salvage them so I tossed them in the wok with a chunk of butter to cook.
Added brown sugar.
hmmm..do I have any pie crust? I could make baked caramel pear empanadas.
Pie crust is frozen....nope, not worth it at 8pm.
Caramelized pears it is.
wait, did I ever put the ice cream maker back in the freezer? cinnamon ice cream with sauteed pears and caramel sauce.....
Nope. Ice cream maker isn't in the freezer. That's ok, no cream in the fridge anyway.
They smell done
hmmm...streusel.....

Ended up just splitting the pears and the now very gooey hot cinnamon caramel sauce into two bowls, depositing one in front of JD at his computer. At least I have someone else to inflict these experiments on. At some point when I put a lot of work into a dish I can't even stand to look at it or smell it any more, much less eat it.

Turns out there's more pectin in the pears than in apples though, because the caramel turned roughly the consistancy of mucous.

Amazing how some people aren't willing to eat something after I proclaim "Holy crap it's cinnamon-caramel snot" as I let it drip suggestively from a spoon.

So most of it was tossed anyway.

So no. I can tell you what ingredient I'm starting with, but I really, honestly, can't tell you what finished dish I'm bringing to pass. Trust me though. If you grit your teeth and bear the uncertainty, I'll make it worth your while. Remember the Oaxaca Hot Chocolate scones that began their life as chocolate chip cookies and lost all evolutionary control? I still get requests for those. Wish I could remember how I made them.