Cooking Averagely

I’ve been cooking averagely for a few weeks now.  Smitten Kitchen mentioned it last week and I thought to myself, “That is exactly it.  That is what I have been doing!”  I’m not sure what it is.  The food’s been only… alright.  Not BAD, really, but nothing wonderful, nothing I’ll re-visit anytime soon without major revisions, and I’m just disappointed.  Not scared off, quite, but just not impressed and not thrilled at the idea of sharing because none of these will make you stop and say “Oh my goodness, this is getting added to the recipe folder.”

The pictures show, in order, an attempt at chicken stew this past Friday, which fell way short of my expectations.  It didn’t thicken up, and it’s clear that my decision to omit potatoes because I don’t like mixing starches and planned on serving it with bread played a part in that, on top of which a recipe I was sort of basing it off requested beans and I knew there would be no conceivable way to get BF to eat it if there were beans.  Ah well. 

The second picture was me playing around with pork spare ribs.  I didn’t want to roast them in the oven, so I seared them then braised/simmered them in my homemade BBQ sauce from this recipe, which had come out so fantastically I couldn’t imagine this being a bad idea.  Well, as you can see, none of that glorious, thick BBQ sauce stuck to the ribs whatsoever- methinks the fat from the pork spare ribs was so great, it thinned out the entire sauce and then some- and it wound up being good but not quite great.  Meh.  Back to the drawing board.

The last item, I am truly sad to say, came from a place I hold dear in my heart- again, Smitten Kitchen.  She has such beautiful pictures and makes many things sound so doable, I went ahead and peered at a link into her archives detailing this cauliflower soup.  (I also made the Caesar dressing from that link, which went over well except BF has such a sensitive palate that he did not like how much mustard I used, ugh, will have to cut down next time!)  Now, I emphasize that I did not make this recipe incorrectly.  Everyone who had some liked it.  I gave away buckets and buckets to my coworkers because I’d accidentally made too much and because I loathed it (plus BF wouldn’t even take one sip).  It was just so smoothly bland; I enjoy cauliflower roasted, lightly boiled, stir fried, I like the vegetable.  But this was just so boring and I’m sorry to SK (but then it’s not her recipe; it’s Dave Lieberman’s, so I feel slightly better abusing it like so on a public forum), so smooth that I had to sprinkle some bacon bits on top for some contrast.  Marginally better would be adding bits of things for contrasting textures- bacon bits, diced bell peppers, corn niblets even?!  All I know is that I was sadly very disappointed once again. 

Overall, though, I’m easing back into the cooking thing.  I fried up 20 lbs. of wings in the past few days, and they all went over swimmingly, so I’ll be sharing those recipes soon enough (hopefully tomorrow).  I’m still recovering from Super Bowl Sunday though, so recipes will be slow-coming (I have so many leftovers, I am working through them painfully)…

I hope everyone else is cooking well and happy eating, as usual!!!