the last two meals I cooked were just gak :-0 they were so bad that

R

randi

Well-known member
I had to run to the fridg and find stuff to get rid of the taste. have any of you gone cuisine splatt? how do you get past it?

I'm almost dreading cooking tonight.... my husband is living in fear.....

is there a sacrifice to the cooking gods that I've overlooked?

 
Yeah, sometimes I scare myself. I go through periods, lasting up to 3 days, where everything I cook

tastes vile. Eventually the cooking curse lifts, but it's painful until it does. And don't even ask about the baking curse.

 
I just have to ask... what were those meals? Don't worry, I've had my

husband living in fear of my experiments for years now, and he's still around to complain. He panics whenever he catches me watching a cooking show - including any 2 minutes segments that show up on the news - I have to change the channel if I hear him coming into the room or he goes into cardiac arrest from the stress/panic at the thought I might be finding a new recipe to try out on him, - but he still tells everyone I'm a great cook! LOL

 
not new dishes and embarrasingly stupidly simple. Sunday I cleaned the

3 lbs of smelts I bought. 2 1/2 hours of work there. left some for dinner and froze the rest.

lightly floured and into hot oil. here, I think the oil wasn't hot enough as they didn't brown quickly and tasted fishy. OK, a big dissapointment and I'm considering chucking the frozen stuff too.

last night, a beautiful piece of Orange Roughy, salad, boiled potatoes. floured the fish, dipped in egg and then in bread crumbs. simple enough... yeah, right. this one had a really, strong, fishy taste that sent us running to the fridg. even the salad dressing didn't seem right and it's Don's favorite. the potatoes were just OK.

Joe gave me recipe for shrimp, flamed with a mustard cream sauce I was going to try tonight but I certainly can't have that one messed up too.

wahhhhh!

 
It sounds to me that the fish might have been the problem in both cases.

Don't worry, if the shrimp is a dud it will be the shrimp's fault too. I'll nag you until you try it again.

I have stretches of days and weeks where I think I'm creating one new taste sensation after another and the results are so boring that I may as well have bought ready-made stuff and reheated it. It passes.

 
Been there, thrown that away. I redeem myself with a couple of T & T's then resume the experiments!

Funny you should bring this up because recently, I've had several meal failures in a row. Not "drive the porcelain bus" failures, mind you but "wouldn't make that again on a bet, what the HECK was I thinking?" failures. Although the recipes were from stellar sources, they just didn't cut it for me or CB.

First was a London Broil marinade from Saveur. The flavors were unique (fennel, cinnamon, red chiles and worcestershire sauce)but ultimately strange and mildly annoying.

The meat was so tough, next day, I relegated it to Ropa Vieja, which, after an hour of recooking, served on toasted corn tortillas with jalapeño beans, shredded lettuce, fresh salsa, guacamole and a blast of crema, resulted in a moderately edible dish. Of course, I coulda done the same with dog food and it would have been "edible".

Then there was the one from Bon Appetit or the LA Times (After failure strikes, I toss the recipe and I no longer have memory capabilities)for Sauteed Pork Chops with Fresh Figs, Rosemary and Shallots.

Sounded fab (doesn't it?) and our white fig tree was prolific so I gave it a go. It was a fairly labor intensive process but truly, remarkably forgettable.

The 2-inch thick chops ended up dry,(you gotta work to dry out 2" thick chops) the fruit (following the recipe's "roast in the oven for 7 minutes" instructions) undercooked and the flavors refused to "blend." I tried to "fix" it by removing the chops, reducing the sauce and recooking the fruit but it was still "nasty". Hate that.

Next day, I recooked the mess (Throw it out!? I think not! As the child of depression-era, immigrant parents, we throw NOTHING away!) with sweet & sour red cabbage, sauteed with a little smoked ham and it turned darned near gewd . . . but really!

(In retrospect, I think I can achieve that enticing flavor combo by dousing paneed chops with preserves made from those figs, mixed with shallot and rosemary, deglazing the pan with white balsamic vinegar and dijon. More on that another time. . . uh, "thyme".)

Had to salvage my week (and ego, I suppose) by cooking Spicy Smothered Chicken and Fresh Ginger Cake followed the next day by Tomato-Beef Curry.

Phew, that was close.

 
Is the shrimp in mustard sauce posted here and searchable? Is that it's name?

Sounds right up my alley!

 
LOL. It's like getting the yips for a golfer. maybe we'll coin a new term. Getting the gaks.

I get the baking gaks when I tweak or experiment too much. I am a hopeless tweaker however. Just can't help myself.

 
Lol, it's here. I had to go retrieve the recipe from the trash and

enter some ingredients into Google to find it. Obviously someone found it tasty. I made approximately 3/4 the recipe with plenty of cauliflower and only 10 oz rigatoni, but even then, I thought it had too much pasta for the sauce. DH didn't think it was so bad, but I have a similar recipe with fewer ingredients I like better.

http://www.chefdecuisine.com/vegetables/cauliflower/CAULIFLOWER_AND_PASTA.asp

 
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