Can just one cook spoil the broth?

February 2023--Never thought I’d be writing about food. Generally speaking, if you are eating, it means you probably cooked or baked it. Something—anything-- more than just taking it out of a bag or box.

Being that I’m Italian one would think I was a pretty good cook. This is not the case. Although I do make a great salad, really good stuffed green peppers and delicious stuffed shells. But after that, I’m pretty much limited to grilled cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, mac and cheese, and brownies from a mix.

There are 600 million blogs on the internet and food is in the number 1 spot. Fear not, foodies and food bloggers, my blog can’t hold a candle to what you do. You’re sharing recipes. All I can share is how to open a package of pre-made cookie dough and slide it into the oven. You’re sharing beautiful presentations. All I can do is share fails.

It’s not like I don’t try. I do.

It’s not like I don’t follow recipes. I do.

It’s not like I don’t try to be creative. I do.

It’s not like I don’t watch cooking shows. I do—sometimes.

And it’s not like I don’t know what I’m doing. Uh, maybe I don’t.

Following a recipe

How hard is it to make rice? I’ve got instant rice down, but after having some delicious jasmine rice and my niece and nephew’s house, I decided to try it on my own. I was doing pretty good with it. Set the timer for 15 minutes and went about doing something else. Don’t know how long it was—but my nose picked up a scent that didn’t smell good. I ran to the kitchen wondering why the timer hadn’t gone off to warn me to check the pot. That’s when I discovered the timer still had more than 14 hours left. Yup, set it for 15 hours instead of 15 minutes. That’s also when I discovered the water was completely gone and the rice was burnt.

Getting creative

Who knew marshmallows blow up in the microwave? This past fall I guess I was missing summer and had such a taste for a s’more. I wasn’t going to start a fire outside just for one s’more so in my eyes, I did the next best thing. I used the microwave.

I laid out the graham crackers, dropped on a small bar of milk chocolate and cut the marshmallow in half before strategically placing each half next to each other on top of the chocolate. Topped it off with another graham cracker. Looked great. Placed it in the microwave for about 40 seconds. Before the ding of the timer could be heard, I peeked in and spotted the marshmallow had puffed out larger than its normal size. I was thrilled to see the graham cracker held fast as did the melted chocolate. I knew this was going to be messy to eat. Have you ever seen anyone eat a s’more with a fork? Neither had I. But you would have if you were at my house that day. In all reality, it's not much messier than when you toast them over a bonfire, but still a mess for indoor consumption. It actually tasted pretty darn good! (Still a fail in the presentation category.)

I try. I really do.

I bought a package of gluten free, pre-made cookie dough. What a nice surprise for my husband, right? Well, partially. The only part we weren't surprised about is that they didn’t turn out.

How hard can it be to follow the directions? I did exactly what the package said to do. Preheated the oven. Spaced them out two inches apart. And didn’t grease the pan as it said not to.

Some turned out over cooked and way too crispy. Others were still raw on the inside. I did, however, take solace in knowing that at least two of them turned out just right.

My just desserts

Then there was the night we were going to a friend’s house for dinner. (Thank goodness she was doing the cooking.) I offered to bring dessert, but I was nervous about making something myself. So I went to the store and saw a box of no-bake peppermint patty dessert bites.

I went over it a hundred times in my head. What did I do wrong? It seemed like I was following the directions. For goodness sake, all I had to do was add milk and butter. Everything else was included. I picked that package for several reasons—I love chocolate, it looked easy, and it looked good on the box. I was ready to impress. Such a fail. But the good news is that the grocery store with a pretty decent bakery was on the way to her house.

I had one job

More recently, we made some artisan style gluten free bread.. My husband did all the mixing. I had one job—put it in the oven. Handled that part like a champ. It was baking up beautifully. When there were 10 minutes left, I switched it to broil like the recipe said.

Again—I had one job. Well, I totally forgot to leave the door slightly ajar. Five minutes later, I was smelling burnt bread. Opened the oven and smoke billowed out. The top of the bread was black. Really black.

I spent the next 10 minutes using a butter knife to scrape the top of the loaf. But we spent the next few minutes after that enjoying the deliciously warm bread. Minus the extra crispy crust. Not a total fail here, right?

I recently found an Instagram account called Foody Fails. Claims it’s definitely not food porn. It’s not been active of late. Too bad I didn’t know about this account sooner; I could have kept it going with my endless supply of food fails.

I know I'll never be Guy Fieri's sous chef--but some day I'll get the hang of this kitchen. And I'll take it one day at a time.

Care to share your food fails? Scroll down past the photos and do so in the comment section!

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