I generally cook things I am familiar with, at least in some form. I generally won't cook something I have never eaten before so that I know how it is supposed to turn out. I like to think that I am a pretty decent cook. I won't win a James Beard award but no one will starve.
So anyways, every now and then, something will not turn out. It won't taste right, or come together or will just plain burn. That is what I did. I burned soup. I put a ham bone (from the freezer) in the slow cooker on low with some hearty split pea soup mix around 8:00 last night. I went to sleep about 11:00. I would normally wake about 7ish. Except for today, I woke up at 11:00. And the top layer of the soup is burnt-looking. So I scraped off the top layer (it's a very thick soup). I will let DH be the taste-tester.
I'm just starting to gain some intuition when it comes to baking. I usually suck quite royally at it. Once, I tried making a chocolate souffle (I can make regular souffles just fine) from a recipe. It came out looking like meatloaf with a burnt top. It tasted horrible. The raspberry sauce I made for it was delish though.
Anything else, I'm fine. One year, I made both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for my family - all from scratch and all was delish. But, the only baked good I'm really good at is pumpkin pie, which I make from scratch.
When I was first starting out reading recipes, I thought "Portuguese cheese soup with green noodles" sounded pretty interesting. I prepared it for Sunday dinner, and brought it in to the family (M,F, & bro). I went back to get the bread and heard my mother FIRMLY instructing my brother "You WILL eat this, and you will NOT make any comments!" It was less than a stellar dish, and after about 3-4 spoonfulls, I got up and removed the bowls from the table. Thankfully, the rest of the dinner was fine.
Back in the 80s there were these box dessert mixes called Tiara cakes.
Well, I was trying to make it and misread the instructions. Instead of 3 tsps. of milk I used three cups of milk and had mousse coming out my ears.
I tend to do better with my own creations.
But when I make something from a recipe, I follow it to the letter the first time. But I usually change it after that.
The first time I made white gravy I used a whole gallon of milk and still didn't get it right.
I still have trouble with biscuits. While they are hot, they are soft and fluffy. Once they cool they develop a protective outer layer. The inside is still fluffy and soft. But the outside becomes a protective shell. I have no idea what I am doing wrong. Neither does mom or dad.
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A flock of flirting flamingos is pure, passionate, pink pandemonium-a frenetic flamingle-mangle-a discordant discotheque of delirious dancing, flamboyant feathers, and flamingo lingo.
I cooked a few months ago with a lobster with some "nice sounding" sides with couscous and other stuff. don't remember the name, tossed the recipe. The food for 4 cost about $100, luckily the lobster was good everything else sucked! I cooked for 5 hours. My mother was kind enough to say things like "it's nice to be together, you worked your hear out, blah blah blah" I finally told her that it's ok to say it sucked, enjoy the lobster. I am good at lobster.
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Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug.
