I looked at my calendar a few days ago, and there was March 31!

“March 31,” I said, “what are you doing there? You should be weeks away!”

“I guess March just got away from you,” March 31 said. “Maybe you should just use that Ghirardelli cookie mix in the pantry.”

“Good idea,” I said. So I got the mix out of the pantry and made the cookies.

You’d think Ghirardelli would make a good cookie. You would be wrong, at least with this particular mix. The cookies have a vaguely metallic flavor. Which is not what I look for in a cookie.

With March 31 just a few days away, I’m not sure I’ll have time to make a new batch of cookies. But I can’t send these out to anyone. So March’s Cookie of the Month winner may have to wait until April’s batch is ready.

So! If you’d like some cookies next month (or maybe this month!), tell me this: What was your worst baking disaster?

Martha Stewart Rockford’s aunt Sally sent me a few wonderful cooking tips a few weeks ago. I haven’t tried them yet, but they’ll be “working for me” soon!

I don’t know if you need “emergency solo meals,” but scoops of Sloppy Joe mixture in a muffin tin, frozen, then popped out into a freezer bag make a great 1-person serving. And on the muffin tin subject, if you freeze your muffin dough (unbaked) in the tins & save them in a freezer container, you can bake them just 5 minutes longer that the regular recipe and they’re bigger/better than the original.

I think the “solo meals” idea would work well for tacos, too, and maybe even for leftover soup. Do you have any great, non-muffin uses for muffin tins?