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 Post subject: Ma, I don't think it's supposed to look like that ...
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 8:47 pm 
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I'm starting a thread on dishes we've made which, despite experience and hard work, just didn't turn out quite right. Maybe they were inedible, or maybe just sad and bland. Maybe they tasted fine but looked terrible. Bonus points for embarassing yourself in front of guests.

I'll start:

It didn't used to be possible to get real bagels in the Rogue Valley in Oregon. So when I visited my in-laws, I used to make bagels. A few years ago, we visited my in-laws for my wife's birthday (late March), and I decided to make bagels while I was up there. I made the dough, let it rise, molded the bagels, and put them in the cooler to rise overnight.

In the morning, they hadn't risen ... in fact, they were flat like little pancakes with holes in the center.

Hmmm. Maybe tossing them in the simmering sugar-water will puff them up? No, that didn't work either ... they puffed a little but not nearly enough. Maybe they'll rise a little in the oven?

So I seasoned them with garlic, onions, salt, etc. and put them in the oven to bake, hoping for some oven spring. But no spring sprung ... they were sad and floppy-looking. Kris christened them "beagles".

Since we had nothing else for brunch, we ate them anyway, spreading stuff on top and chewing dilligently at the tough dense bread. They tasted OK, but were very hard to eat. We threw out the leftovers.

It was only looking at the calendar 2 weeks later that I realized what I'd done wrong ... I had been trying to make bagels during Passover!

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 Post subject: Re: Ma, I don't think it's supposed to look like that ...
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 9:04 pm 
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Location: Northern California
ooh you got punished!!! :o Reminds me of my mil who always wants to make a point to others about being Jewish. Years ago she was flying across country and specifically ordered a kosher meal despite not ever having kept kosher. When they called out her name, she stood up and waved to show where she was sitting. Of course she had no idea until later that it was Yom Kippur (Day of atonement when religious Jews fast from sundown to sundown for those unfamiliar with Jewish customs). One of many stories about her antics. I'll come up with one more related to me soon...


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 Post subject: Re: Ma, I don't think it's supposed to look like that ...
PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:57 am 
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And lo, God smote the bagels.


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 Post subject: Re: Ma, I don't think it's supposed to look like that ...
PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 12:49 pm 
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TheFuzzy wrote:
dishes we've made which, despite experience and hard work, just didn't turn out quite right.
One word: Turducken.

More specifically, Paul Prudhomme's recipe for Turducken.

We worked on it an entire day, and on the next day what resulted was so rich (and so greasy) that we couldn't bear to eat more than about a forkful each.


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 Post subject: Re: Ma, I don't think it's supposed to look like that ...
PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 10:21 pm 
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I spent hours making layers for a wedding cake from a customers family recipe. They were just wrong. The next day the other baker made a new set. I asked him how much flour he had used. "8 ounces per cup" he replied. I still don't know in what universe you can fit 8 onces of cake flour into one cup.


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 Post subject: Re: Ma, I don't think it's supposed to look like that ...
PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 11:11 pm 
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Becky,

8 ounces volume?

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 Post subject: Re: Ma, I don't think it's supposed to look like that ...
PostPosted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 9:34 pm 
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Well, I weighed the flour at 4.5 ounces/cup. He apparently weighed it at 8 oz. per cup. The rcipe was for three 9" layers and we were doing a wedding cake for 50 so we scaled it up.


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 Post subject: Re: Ma, I don't think it's supposed to look like that ...
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:27 pm 
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You you guys could move beyond your crazy measurement system this kind of thing would be a lot more infrequent.... after all, a cup has 8 oz, right?


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 Post subject: Re: Ma, I don't think it's supposed to look like that ...
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 2:55 pm 
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Location: Michigan
The first year my husband and I were married we decided to invite his family for Thanksgiving dinner. His brother Pete was raising turkey's that year and wanted to furnish the bird. We decided that in order to cook everything we would use an electric roaster which we borrowed from my FIL. We picked up the turkey a day before Thanksgiving and found it weighed over 25lbs. It was a monster of a bird. Way more than we had bargained for, but we were game to give it a go.

On Thanksgiving morning we seasoned it up and went to put it in the roaster. Of course it would not fit. We shoved and shoved the darn bird wasn't gonna go. :x With no options of using the oven since everything else would be in there, my husband got out a hand saw and hacked of the wings.

We managed to wedge that damn bird into the roaster, it was tight touching on all sides. We turned on the roaster and let it go for most of the day. At one point the spots where the wings had been removed and the drumsticks started to burn. We turned the roaster down and prayed for the best.

After it was cooked we realized my BIL had not removed all the tiny little white feathers, we had not notice them while wedging the bird into the roaster, so we cooked the bird feathers and all! :lol:

When it came time to serve the beast of a bird we hid it in the kitchen and carved it up. Nobody ever saw what a mangled burned disaster that poor bird was. And to our good fortune it tasted fine. :oops:



That was the first of many Thanksgiving birds I've cooked, and a real learning experience.

Laurie

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 Post subject: Re: Ma, I don't think it's supposed to look like that ...
PostPosted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 4:24 pm 
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Paul Kierstead wrote:
You you guys could move beyond your crazy measurement system this kind of thing would be a lot more infrequent.... after all, a cup has 8 oz, right?

:raspberry

Yeah, we are nuts.


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