Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Never Again Meals
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Sometimes, from thrift, or necessity or possibly misplaced confidence in your cooking ability, you make a meal which is memorable for the wrong reasons.
I think the chicken, mushroom, tomato and tamarind soup I had for lunch may fall into this category.
What have you learnt the hard way, culinarily speaking?
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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jacobsen
seeker
# 14998
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Posted
I will never forget the liover risotto dish in which my mother misread two chili peppers as two ounces of chilis. Only my father and I managed even a few forkfuls...
-------------------- But God, holding a candle, looks for all who wander, all who search. - Shifra Alon Beauty fades, dumb is forever-Judge Judy The man who made time, made plenty.
Posts: 8040 | From: Æbleskiver country | Registered: Aug 2009
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
This was made for me rather than by my own fair hand. But never use Wensleydale cheese with cranberries in a Tuna Pasta Bake. It makes the Pasta Bake purple. And sweet.
-------------------- "I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Firenze: Sometimes, from thrift, or necessity or possibly misplaced confidence in your cooking ability, you make a meal which is memorable for the wrong reasons.
This would be all of my cooking. I bake well but I can't cook - I hate tasting it and tasting is key.
Thankfully Mr Boogs is a real foody and does all the cooking. I do the bigger job - clearing up afterwards.
-------------------- Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Pancakes (savoury) layered with tinned tuna and cheese sauce from a packet. (Just back from a holiday, little else about.) Best friend still recalls it with disgust. Tinned tomatoes may have been involved. [ 11. October 2015, 14:54: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
Ah! The time I got 2 pots of chicken stock out of the freezer to make mushroom soup with and one turned out to be stewed apple - and I went ahead anyway. It wasn't awful, but I'm not sure I'd care to repeat the experience.
M.
Posts: 2303 | From: Lurking in Surrey | Registered: Sep 2002
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Main courses I'm usually all right on but the peripherals are something else. My foray into making ice cream was notable for producing a block of something that looked convincing but turned out to be a block of pure fat swimming in a sea of green liquid; two attempts at making jam resulted in a very nice but runny sauce which went beautifully with chocolate sponge puddings, and something very chewy with a lot of pips in.
And dear God there were the salted chocolate chip cookies, made to a recipe by a famous chef, who clearly hadn't proofread it. The crowning confirmation was when one of my colleagues discreetly (but not that discreetly because I noticed) dumped hers into the bin after one bite. I still wish I'd disposed of the batch before attempting to bring them into the office.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Tree Bee
Ship's tiller girl
# 4033
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Posted
I made bread once. It was so dense that when thrown out for the birds they ignored it too. Then there was clafoutis. It was cherries in Yorkshire pudding. Sure I did something wrong but don't want to try that again!
-------------------- "Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple." — Woody Guthrie http://saysaysay54.wordpress.com
Posts: 5257 | From: me to you. | Registered: Feb 2003
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Then there's the mistaken belief that adding another ingredient will rescue things. There was the dessert laboriously made from fresh chestnuts, that tasted of nothing much - until we added whipped cream and golden syrup whereupon it tasted disgusting.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Tree Bee: I made bread once. It was so dense that when thrown out for the birds they ignored it too.
Yes, my first attempt came out as a small flat loaf the quarter of the size of anything you'd get in the supermarket. It required some sawing. I didn't bother after the first slice and haven't tried again.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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marzipan
Shipmate
# 9442
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Cottontail: This was made for me rather than by my own fair hand. But never use Wensleydale cheese with cranberries in a Tuna Pasta Bake. It makes the Pasta Bake purple. And sweet.
In a similar vein, I once made bacon & cabbage soup with red cabbage. I think it came out brown coloured. Then there was the time I got a ready meal (just got home after Christmas and all the shops were closed), put it on the oven and turned on the grill rather than the oven - the plastic dish it was in melted. I'm sure I've had many other disasters but there's so many I don't bother to remember them.
-------------------- formerly cheesymarzipan. Now containing 50% less cheese
Posts: 917 | From: nowhere in particular | Registered: May 2005
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
When I had a regular veggie box we were sent too much swede, all winter. I tried substituting it in potato recipes, sometimes effectively, mostly not. Don't ever try making gnocchi with swede.
-------------------- Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
All of which reminds me of Jo March's cooking in 'Little Women.' Her sister's verdict 'Salt instead of sugar, and the cream was sour.'
-------------------- You can't retire from a calling.
Posts: 1675 | From: saint meinrad, IN | Registered: Apr 2006
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Banner Lady
Ship's Ensign
# 10505
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Posted
Then there was the time I got some pureed apricots from the freezer for dessert, only to discover too late that I had used pumpkin soup in the pudding instead....
-------------------- Women in the church are not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be enjoyed.
Posts: 7080 | From: Canberra Australia | Registered: Oct 2005
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
My infamous attempt to stretch the leftover sloppy joe filling by making omelets was a notable failure.
My grandmother tried to influence one of the local boys to become attached to my mom by telling him about mom's delicious doughnuts. Mom had never made them before. They were like rocks.
-------------------- Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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Galloping Granny
Shipmate
# 13814
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Posted
Six female students flatting together – we didn't do mixed flatiing in the fifties.
And I actually can't remember whether we put Mary's pale custard on our cauliflower thinking it was white sauce, or kept it for our pudding and found that it was white sauce for the cauliflower.
I guess Mary cooked dinner and then went off to a late lecture.
GG
-------------------- The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
Posts: 2629 | From: Matarangi | Registered: Jun 2008
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
I'm not sure if this counts as "culinary" or not, but when D. and I were courting, we'd go back to his flat for coffee, and although he rarely drinks coffee, he was very good at making it (his secret was a wee drop of whisky).
However, on one occasion, it tasted decidedly odd, but I was too polite to say anything. He asked me if it was OK, and I said it did taste a little different ...
"Ah" he said, "I ran out of whisky, so I put some GIN in it".
I think it ended up in the cheese-plant ...
-------------------- I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander. alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Leaf
Shipmate
# 14169
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Cottontail: This was made for me rather than by my own fair hand. But never use Wensleydale cheese with cranberries in a Tuna Pasta Bake. It makes the Pasta Bake purple. And sweet.
This reminds me of the time I tried to make chicken Veronique with purple grapes instead of green. Purple lesions appeared on the chicken breasts. I had accidentally invented Kaposi's Sarcoma chicken.
Posts: 2786 | From: the electrical field | Registered: Oct 2008
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Ariel: And dear God there were the salted chocolate chip cookies, made to a recipe by a famous chef, who clearly hadn't proofread it.
I made penne alla vodka from a certain recently divorced celebrity chef's cookbook. Most of the recipes in the book are actually quite good, but there must have been an error on that one, as it calls for about five times more vodka than you actually need. Tasted like a bloody Mary made with half mix and half vodka. You'd have a tough time passing a Breathalyzer after a few bites.
-------------------- "I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Don't make bolognaise with green tomatoes, it comes out kharki
-------------------- All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Roseofsharon
Shipmate
# 9657
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Posted
We went for lunch with an old friend recently. The starter was mushrooms stuffed with minced meat - possibly turkey - and various other ingredients, including minced root ginger. As often happens the piece of ginger somehow didn't make it from the check-out into his shopping bag and home - so he substituted something from his store cupboard. Let me tell you, mushrooms stuffed with minced turkey and stem ginger is memorable for all the wrong reasons!
-------------------- Talk about books -any books- on our rejuvenatedforum http://www.bookgrouponline.com/index.php?
Posts: 3060 | From: Sussex By The Sea | Registered: Jun 2005
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Bob Two-Owls
Shipmate
# 9680
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Posted
My aunt used to live out of Scoop shops, where you buy dry foods by the pound in clear plastic bags. Unfortunately she never marked the bags with any sort of clue as to the contents so we regularly had disasters such as gravy thickened with raspberry blancmange or coffee with dried egg.
Posts: 1262 | Registered: Jul 2005
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kingsfold
Shipmate
# 1726
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Posted
Do not make lentil soup with a mixture of green & brown lentils. It tasted absolutely fine, but when it was pureed up, the colour and texture were reminiscent of something else entirely....
And there was the day I'd got some sort of pork and vegetable lobbit going on, and had added mustard and forgotten, so then added a green chilli. The result was inedible - I did try, but had to throw it out it was that bad!
Posts: 4473 | From: land of the wee midgie | Registered: Nov 2001
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
The Beware the Cookbook ones - especially the ones you bought on holiday with dreams of recreating the delicious local specialities in your own kitchen. Which is where you realise the translation from the original Greek or Portugese or Walloon may not be all it might be - like the recipe for kugelhopf which instructed you to add the yeast after the liquid. Useful if you want a doughnut-shaped brick.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
I once took someone's advice that cooking an egg into a bolognese made for a rich, tasty sauce. It ruined the texture and wasn't the most appetising flavour either.
-------------------- I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it. Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Cottontail: This was made for me rather than by my own fair hand. But never use Wensleydale cheese with cranberries in a Tuna Pasta Bake. It makes the Pasta Bake purple. And sweet.
... Bake.
I'm very wary of any "..... Bake" recipes especially novel ones found in the more traditional women's magazines. They usually turn out to be tasteless stodge. All the recipes of that kind that are any good (moussaka, lasagna, shepherd's pie) are well known already and some of them, like biriani, are quite difficult to get right.
-------------------- "He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Banner Lady: Then there was the time I got some pureed apricots from the freezer for dessert, only to discover too late that I had used pumpkin soup in the pudding instead....
I did this the other way round! I used apricots in pumpkin soup which I had taken to a shared meal
And there was the chickpea loaf that could have been used to replace bricks broken in the earthquake.
Huia
-------------------- Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
Don't eat eggs that I have cooked! I am rubbish at breakfast, but good at steak.
They have this wonderful invention here: microwave Brussels sprouts - we eat them once or twice a week and they go well with steaks or bangers.
-------------------- If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
As an inexperienced yoof I once marinaded some very good steak in red wine but no oil - the taste was just a tad acid!
The young man I was trying to entice into an afternoon's slap and tickle was not impressed.
-------------------- I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way. Fancy a break in South India? Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Do not use red lettuce in courgette and lettuce soup; the resulting brown colour is unattractive.
If you have used red lettuce, do not try to rescue it by adding a dash of cream; this converts an unattractive brown into something much worse.
However, if you want to get a small child to eat said soup, adding a plastic hippopotamus does help, as the soup does look like the sort of stuff a hippo might wallow in, and small children are apparently willing to eat "swamp soup."
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Anyone else had a child who took one look at their dinner and then refused to say Grace on the basis that "If I tell God I'm grateful for this He will know I'm telling lies."?
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Athrawes
Ship's parrot
# 9594
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by North East Quine: Anyone else had a child who took one look at their dinner and then refused to say Grace on the basis that "If I tell God I'm grateful for this He will know I'm telling lies."?
Quotes file!
-------------------- Explaining why is going to need a moment, since along the way we must take in the Ancient Greeks, the study of birds, witchcraft, 19thC Vaudeville and the history of baseball. Michael Quinion.
Posts: 2966 | From: somewhere with a book shop | Registered: Jun 2005
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
Just remembered the first time I tried to do honey-roasted chicken. Nobody told me that you had to add the honey 2/3rds of the way through the roasting. I put it on at the start.
Nothing has ever come out of my oven more black, crisp and inedible.
-------------------- I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it. Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Dal Segno
al Fine
# 14673
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Posted
Making a brown gravy the way you make white sauce, replacing the milk with equal amounts of soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce. The taste was strong. Very strong.
-------------------- Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
Posts: 1200 | From: Pacific's triple star | Registered: Mar 2009
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by North East Quine: Anyone else had a child who took one look at their dinner and then refused to say Grace on the basis that "If I tell God I'm grateful for this He will know I'm telling lies."?
I think I've been that child. I'm still that adult, truth be told - for certain values of 'adult' anyway.
-------------------- Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
When I was first married 45 years ago, I decided I should impress my in-laws with a nice roast chicken dinner (I had never cooked one before). I spent a lot of time preparing lovely vegetables and was determined to make a good impression. Unfortunately this was in the days when frozen chickens came with a plastic bag of giblets stuffed inside and I had no idea about this. Needless to say the chicken was well cooked but smelt and tasted revolting. I'm sure my mother in-law thought I was trying to poison her dear boy! They were very unwilling to come again for a meal for a long time.
-------------------- "My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, accept the praise I bring"
Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
We always have red cabbage with Christmas dinner and to eke out the roasties (as if they need it) we have mashed potatoes too.
Please folks, if you use the pan in which you cooked the cabbage to boil the spuds, wash it it within an inch of its life, for the natural dye in red cabbage is powerful stuff and turns mashed potato purple, and not in an attractive way.
-------------------- "He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
On that note, a pan used for a tumeric-rich curry can turn subsequent foodstuffs an interesting greenish yellow. Not a good look for bacon, on the whole.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
I have a cookbook written for people who have a seasonal glut of something. It has, for example, 37 recipes for carrots. Some of the recipes are excellent but some are clearly the result of desperation, and I haven't been able to work out which is which without trying them.
One of the 24 recipes for beetroot is "beetroot pie" which involves making a sort of custard out of pureed beetroot, egg and cream, which is baked until set. The end result is blancmange pink. Somehow eating a sweetly pretty pink savoury dish Just. Does. Not. work.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
There is a great recipe for a cocktail, which you start off by steeping beets in gin. It turns the gin a deep blood red, of course. The resulting cocktail tastes marvelous.
-------------------- Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
We used to have a 1950s WI drinks recipe book, which included things like Beetroot Stout- basically, take some stout and soak some beetroot in it. Why???
-------------------- My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Alex Cockell
Ship’s penguin
# 7487
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by North East Quine: Do not use red lettuce in courgette and lettuce soup; the resulting brown colour is unattractive.
If you have used red lettuce, do not try to rescue it by adding a dash of cream; this converts an unattractive brown into something much worse.
However, if you want to get a small child to eat said soup, adding a plastic hippopotamus does help, as the soup does look like the sort of stuff a hippo might wallow in, and small children are apparently willing to eat "swamp soup."
Posts: 2146 | From: Reading, Berkshire UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
All of which brings to mind an uncle of mine contemplating a brown, rather slurry-like mixture I had going on the cooker and remarking, in a slow, Monaghan drawl: 'I've see stuff like that before. But it wasn't in a saucepan.'
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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jrw
Shipmate
# 18045
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Posted
I once tried to make chocolate fudge. After letting all the black smoke out of the window, I spent most of the evening chiseling a rock hard black substance off the inside of the saucepan.
Posts: 522 | Registered: Mar 2014
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Sioni Sais: ... the natural dye in red cabbage is powerful stuff and turns mashed potato purple ...
You may jest, but over here, especially out in the country, no church pot-luck is complete without at least one mashed-potato salad that's been coloured with beetroot juice, which has a similar effect.
-------------------- I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander. alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Piglet: quote: Originally posted by Sioni Sais: ... the natural dye in red cabbage is powerful stuff and turns mashed potato purple ...
You may jest, but over here, especially out in the country, no church pot-luck is complete without at least one mashed-potato salad that's been coloured with beetroot juice, which has a similar effect.
Another instance with potato salad is when you don't happen to have shallots, but have plenty of red onions you need to use up.
-------------------- I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it. Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Talking of colours, black pudding, green peppers and red tomatoes may be a dashing combination - but doesn't really work as a sandwich filling.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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cattyish
Wuss in Boots
# 7829
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by North East Quine: Do not use red lettuce in courgette and lettuce soup; the resulting brown colour is unattractive.
If you have used red lettuce, do not try to rescue it by adding a dash of cream; this converts an unattractive brown into something much worse.
However, if you want to get a small child to eat said soup, adding a plastic hippopotamus does help, as the soup does look like the sort of stuff a hippo might wallow in, and small children are apparently willing to eat "swamp soup."
Are you trying to kill us? Cattyish, nearly dying laughing.
-------------------- ...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Posts: 1794 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jul 2004
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
...Crunchy. Avoid like the plague. Usually it means that scrunched up potato crisps are scattered over the top, not necessarily a good thing.
I have less-than-fond memories of a particularly revolting number produced by my late Mama, Crunchy Tuna Bake. This consisted of tuna fish in parsley sauce, a layer of processed peas and chopped carrots, topping of mashed potato and parsnip combination, all topped off with a topping of crushed cheese & onion crisps mixed with grated stilton. I don't think the sauce bubbling up from the bottom layer helped but
-------------------- Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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