Oops, that ain't right - Culinary disasters

You know, I was thinking (you could smell the smoke, right?) and it occurred to me that I do a lot of posts on all the things that have gone well. All those yummy, mouthwatering recipes and experiments that were great successes.

In reality, they aren't all perfect. They aren't all tasty.  So this post is dedicated to all the screw ups. Let's see...

Whole Wheat Flour - My most recent compost heap enhancing experiments has been with whole wheat flour and (no fault of it's own) cornmeal. With the One Local Summer (OLS) Challenge lasting an entire 13 weeks, the real challenge for me is to not bore everyone with the same foods week after week (let's just say I'm completely unimaginative in the kitchen). But when I found out I had access to local whole wheat flour and cornmeal, I went on a recipe search for breads! Great, right? Well, here's the catch. I don't really like whole wheat bread. There, I said it. I know, I know. I'm a health nut hypocrite, but I'm coming out of the pantry to admit my dirty little secret to the world. All this healthy, healthy, healthy, crap and what do I really want? White bread! Now I'm not talking about wonder bread. I mean, really good white breads (french bread, croissants, rolls), in all their refined, high glucose goodness. YUM, dang-it! 

But I was ignoring that fact at the moment as I made a loaf of 100% whole wheat beer bread as well as some corn bread with cornmeal and (you guessed it) whole wheat flour. Um, how should I describe it? Blah! I plan on trying the cornmeal mixed will all-purpose flour (not local) for a non-OLS day, but that's an experiment for the future. There is one thing that I prefer whole wheat flour in, though. Pancakes! Go figure. I don't like regular pancakes much, but I love whole wheat pancakes and whole wheat/oatmeal pancakes. I'm just weird, but that really wasn't up for debate, was it?

Maple Syrup - Speaking of pancakes, we've been making our own syrup too!  Unfortunately, this simple recipe seems a bit to much for my little brain. The first time I was making it, my father was over. And distracted by talking to him, I let the syrup boil on the stove for just a little too long. The result? I burned it. It smelled fine, but had this lovely charred taste. Hmmm. So then this last time, scared I would burn it again, I didn't boil it enough and we have this maple-y liquid that's more like thickened water. It definitely tastes good on pancakes if you can catch it running all over the plate like a rampaging flood. Oh well. We'll shoot for somewhere in the middle next time.

Canning - In May, I posted about my first non-jam canning experiment with citrus. Unfortunately, I didn't get the jars sterilized well and within 3 days, all 3 of the jars had popped their seals. Thankfully, the second time worked (using the boiling water bath) and in the end I only lost 3 jars of citrus. Good thing I was up for a little practice before main event (main event being peaches and pears this summer).

Jam - Speaking of canning, I have a confession to make (with both Sharli and I having made perfect jam since, it's probably ok to admit this). It was the day after our very first lesson on making jam and my friend Sharli and I decided to try it on our own to reinforce our learning experience. With no one to instruct us, we went through each of the steps - washing and cutting the berries, boiling them down, adding the sugar, pouring them into sterilized jars and patiently waiting for them to seal. With one batch down, we were ready for one more. Again, we washed and cut the berries, put them in the jar to boil them down, and - OH CRAP! It was as we grabbed for the package of pectin that we noticed the other package was open, but still had the pectin inside. So instead of making jam, what we ended up with was more like strawberry syrup. In the end, we decided that we TOTALLY meant to do that. I mean, it would be great with pancakes, over angel food cake, or even pound cake. Yep. We meant that.

Yogurt - After 8 or 9 months of making yogurt with no problems and then even blogging about how easy it is, my yogurt starting failing. After 2 out of 3 batches failed, I went into major troubleshooting mode. I think I have it figured out - it worked the last 2 times, anyway. But not wanting to throw away the un-yogurt that had taken me 6 hours to un-make, I didn't feel like just tossing it. So the next morning, I fixed a bowl of my diet-cheating cereal and poured some of the un-yogurt on top just as I would have milk. OH GOOD HEAVENS, I'M GOING TO GAG! So not a good idea. Needless to say (after 3 bites just to be sure it didn't get any better), I ran to the sink, drained the un-yogurt out, and refreshed my bowl with real 100% raw, whole, yummy, milk. Let's just say, I'll only make that mistake once!

So there it is. I'm figuring this out as I go along just like anyone else. Hopefully, I'm learning from my mistakes (i.e. don't drink milk/un-yogurt that has been sitting out for 6 plus hours - who'd have known?). Alright, so fess up. Anybody else out there have an adventure in culinary disaster to share...