Hello. My name is Elaine, and I have a problem. I do not follow recipes. It has been 23 days since my last recipe.
In fact, over the past year or two, my biggest cooking disappointments have been when I actually followed a recipe to the T. In light of my recent tirade against hospitality perfection, I am going to break the all-of-my-recipes-turn-out-picture-perfect-as-shown-on-my-blog mold and actually disclose a few of the cooking catastrophes that have brought me to this point.
Cheesy Cauliflower of Crap: I would like to think that my first big catastrophe happened as a result of a faulty recipe. Actually, I think it was just a matter of lack of specification. I will never actually know because I have vowed to never attempt it again. it seemed simple enough. Cheddar cheese, cauliflower, and a few other ingredients. one of which happened to be mustard. So in went the required two-tablespoons of mustard. Dry mustard. Had the recipe stated "prepared" I am sure all would be well with the world. But it didn't. And I didn't know any better. This will forever be remembered as the recipe that disproved my theory that cheese can make anything better.
Not-So-Angelic Food Cake: Over the past year, I have transitioned to purchasing and using as little processed food as possible. Around the beginning of this switch was an evening during which we decided to have a spur-of-the-moment fondue night. After completing a 5-star rated recipe online (which called for no less than twelve eggs), the entire thing wound up in the trash, pan included. The thing had smelled, felt, and tasted like a mass of rubber yuck and put me out of $1.79 worth of eggs. Thank goodness for 75-cent Target-brand angel food cake mixes.
Step Away from the Slow-Cooker: I think most people have cooking spurts at some point or another. During my crockpot spurt, I was making a meal for some friends who had recently had a baby, and said recipe included a cup of rice. It also stupidly included only 1/2 cup of water. If you know anything at all about cooking rice, you know that despite the 8 hours that it was in the magic-dinner-making-machine, you know that it wound up to be a crunchy, uncooked mess. Unfortunately I didn't discover this until I was leaving to bring it to them.
Yes Virginia, There Is Such a Thing as Bad Chocolate: The most recent flop occurred about a month ago when we had some friends over for games and dessert. I was melting some chocolate in a double boiler (as per the directions which were followed to the letter). At the end, it told me to slowly add a tablespoon of milk. I had been a little skeptical of this step, but because hundreds of reviewers claimed "BEST RECIPE EVARRRR!!" "I WILL NEVER EAT ANOTHER THING AGAIN!" "Hubby ate the whole thing before the children got any-- I guess that's a good thing, right?" I had decided that it would work. Ten seconds later, my gorgeous silky, Wonka River quality chocolate had morphed into a ball of sticky nastiness.
My view of recipes has changed greatly over the past year, but not only for these reasons. Now, when I do consult a recipe, it is used mainly as inspiration ("Hmm, I never thought of putting coconut extract in my BBQ sauce"). Cooking has become more of an art form than a science. On the occasion that something I creates causes eyes to roll into the back of our heads, I write it down (a tad oxymoronic perhaps). I will be posting them, so stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment