Not Everything I Make Turns to Yummy Goodness

I’ve been thinking about today’s topic this past week and then lo and behold I see a topic of the same nature started by the always lovely and funny Beppa of 123Raw. BTW, if you’re not a member you should join. It’s fun and very social yet helpful and supportive.

Update: sorry two of the above links don't work unless you're a member and already logged in but the 123Raw link should work for those interested.

My favorite sister in the whole wide world has commented before how different we are in the kitchen. She’s the type that can make things up as she goes and rarely measures anything. Me, I’m the type who does follow a recipe and measures most things because frankly, I don’t trust myself (of course there are exceptions). I’m not that confident in the kitchen to just wing it. When things need to be tweaked I usually call on hubby to taste test and then fix it with what it needs then it turns out great. If it wasn’t for him sometimes, I’d still be in the kitchen trying to make marinara sauce and probably have about 10 cups of the stuff because I kept adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that to get it just right.

So even though I’m no culinary chef I do love being in the kitchen trying new recipes. I would say most come out pretty good, with or without extra hubby-help.

However……….there are times when things are just beyond help. For instance, I recently tried what I’m sure is a fantastic recipe for chocolate pudding. I won’t reference the (un)cookbook I got it from but I will say that it called for TWO TABLESPOONS of vanilla extract (see pic below). I halved the recipe so this means…*gets out calculator*…two divided by two equals ONE. One tablespoon of vanilla extract. Does that seem like a lot to you? It did to me but I’m following the recipe darn it so it’s not my fault if it doesn’t work out.

I had to include this picture to show the "proof is in the pudding!" Nah-nah-nah-nahh!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love vanilla. Back in my old days of baking cookies and cakes I’d always double the amount of vanilla the recipe called for but my first instinct on this raw pudding was this is too much to begin with.

Man, I ramble a lot…

So when blending this together I sampled the pudding. Blech! It tasted like vanilla alcohol. I finished blending and put it in the fridge in hopes it would settle and mellow. It did a little. Hubby liked it okay but for me I just kept tasting vanilla extract. Aside from that, I think the pudding is a winning recipe. Next time I might try a scraped vanilla bean or decrease the extract by at least half.

The other mishap I had in making something was following a recipe for stuffed Anaheim peppers. This is not Ani Phyo’s recipe btw, which I’ve had (hubby made) and those are d-lish. The recipe I followed is from another cookbook. Again, I won’t reference because I don’t want it to seem as though I’m slamming the authors (both cookbooks I used are awesome and I would recommend to anyone). It just so happens I tried a recipe that didn’t work for me.

You might recognize the photo on the left if you have this particular book. See how it’s supposed to look? And see how mine ended up? Gross! Not even close!

Which would you eat?

Yeah, I know I didn’t make all the stuff on top that they did but I had already spent a lot of time on this - looks like I over-"cooked" them too.

It’s stuffed with a cashew cheese then covered in a macadamia nut batter (which I actually liked). We love nut cheeses, ones we’ve tweaked anyway, but this was too much! The guacamole I put on top of it was good though. Ha ha! I won’t be making this again. Looks better in their photo so I feel a little tricked.

As a side note, when working with peppers no matter how mild you might think they are (exception are bell peppers) ALWAYS wear gloves. Always always always! Anaheims aren’t hot to me but when cleaning out the membranes and seeds, yeah they’re HOT. Cha cha cha hot. My fingers were seriously burning up for several hours. It was like as though I had played tug of war and ended up with rope burns.

So while the overall stuffed pepper meal wasn’t the worst we've had it was just a lot of work for less than so-so results. We didn’t even save the leftovers. Expensive waste.

Mishaps happen (say that fast one time…or twice if you’re talented) but tomorrow’s another day in the kitchen at the dehydrator, juicer or Vita-Mix.