Recipe Reminiscing

In enjoying a lovely dinner with friends last night (Thank you Jasper for the divine mango-chicken pasta!), we started discussing this blog which led, naturally, to a discussion of other recipe disasters.

What was brought up in my mind were, actually three classic events in my cooking memory, I'll share them over the course of this blog.

I would like to start by saying that it helps to actually have the recipe somewhere that you are trying to make, especially if it is something you have not made before and extra especially if it is something finicky, like gnocchi. In the days where I had television I would often have a lazy saturday morning watching the cooking shows on PBS while still in bed. One day, they made handmade gnocchi. It looked simple enough, just remember the ratio of ingredients. I didn't write anything down, just listened and did my best to memorize the steps and ratios. Well, of course, this was an inspiration and off I was to the store later that day to gather the ingredients.

So, I guess my memory is not so great, and because of this, now I write things down. Instructions seemed simple enough, I made the fluffy gnocchi dough, got my water salted and boiling and away I went. I must have gone for 'extra' fluffy, so fluff, in fact, that the gnocchi fluffed apart into a pile of starchy mush floating in my pot of water! Hmmm, what did I miss? Definitely one of those nights where I said, "Honey, how about we go out for dinner tonight!"

To see how to properly make tasty light tasty looking gnocchi, I have now found this informative video. I have not tried this recipe yet, but I have lately been feeling inspired to try my hand at gnocchi once again.

Don't worry, I have my pen and paper right beside me to write down the exact instructions.

Blog-Inspiring Disaster

Okay, so something hit me this weekend and I got on a cooking frenzy. I think it started while I was teaching a collage workshop on Saturday. I saw a really tasty looking picture for Pappardelle with Chicken & Winter Greens in one of the magazines and tore it out to make this week:
Tonight (monday) was the night! I had all the ingredients assembled and was ready to cook, and hungry! I guess it is something about the combination of sherry, cream, cheese, rotisserie chicken and greens that simply does not work for my taste buds. Perhaps I didn't do such a good job in preparation (I was thinking that I overcooked the greens by a minute and a half or so before adding the next step). I don't know, but when I got it in my bowl and tasted it......YEUCH!!!!

So, it is your turn, my friends! Try it out (click on the link above to get to the recipe). Let me know if it truly is disgusting or I just messed it up....badly.

As I was cleaning up this mess, down the disposal, I said to my self: "Sheesh, this was the worst recipe ever!" And here we are at a new blog.

So, let me know if you would like to join in the fun and be an author!