Duds

Lest you think I have been remiss about my Cooking Challenge, I thought I would dedicate a post to the duds I have known and loved so far. I have already mentioned two of the duds in an earlier post, but as the duds mount, I realized that if I didn't share my failures as well as my successes, this blog could wind up being pretty sparse.

The first recipe to break my heart was Roasted Chicken and Arugula from Everday Food. I am constantly on the lookout for simple recipes with few ingredients that I can easily whip up with the baby attached to my hip. Oh, this recipe was sooooo promising. Arugula, potatoes, butter - what more could a recipe need? I really, really wanted to love this dish. But no matter how I tried, I could not even muster up an "okay" for this recipe. The chicken was bland, the arugula made my mouth feel as though I had been eating sand at the park all day, (which gave me a better understanding of why my 18 month old is so cranky when we come home from a day of sand-eating), the potatoes were so-so. My dislike for the dish made me even more sad when I realized that this is the first time in 15 years that Martha has failed me. Martha? Why did you have to harsh my mellow?

The next dud came courtesy of Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, another cook for whom I have the utmost respect and rely upon to publish failproof recipes. The recipe was for Ina's Outrageous Oreo cookies, which I found published in Oprah's magazine a few years ago. Oprah, another woman who ususally knows her food. Anyway - I am so very sad about these brownies. I can't even talk about it. Just trust me, and don't waste your time cooking this (very involved and time-consuming) recipe.

Last, but not least, we have the Kielbasa, Cabbage and Rice soup from this month's Food and Wine magazine. I love, love, love kielbasa. It's crazy, really. I also am very found of cabbage and rice. Sure, the ingredients list looked a little sparse, but I hoped that this was one of those dishes that was greater than the sum of its parts. And what great parts with which to begin! But it was not to be. This soup was sooooo bland and tasteless, I picked out all the kielbasa and threw the rest away. If you knew me, you would know that this is a HUGE statement.

So that's it for this post. Stay tuned for more fun and excitement in the kitchen! Tonight I plan to bake the Confetti Bakery's recipe for vanilla sugar cookies, which cookies I will then attempt to decorate in an artistic manner. If you knew me, you would know how funny an undertaking this will be!

Love, -40