I like to pride myself on the fact that I do not often waste any
food. Although I know I spend more than
the average American does on groceries, since I buy a large amount of organic
produce in addition to expensive items like nuts, seeds and dark chocolate, I
know that everything I buy eventually gets consumed. I plan my weekly meals
around leftovers, am constantly checking dates on everything I buy so as not to
let anything go bad, and besides the very occasional piece of rotten produce, I throw out next to nothing. I am
always eating the last few bites off of my children’s plates, saving little
bits of everything to be eaten later, and whenever I bake, I channel my great
grandmother’s influence and insist on scraping the bowl of batter completely clean so as
not to waste even one bite. I value my
food and I hate to see anything edible go uneaten.
This past weekend, however, I had to give in. With all the experimentation I do in my
kitchen, not often repeating a recipe twice, it is amazing that I have not
had more failures than I have. Usually, even
if something doesn’t turn out quite right, it still gets eaten, whether it is a
pan of brownies that will not hold it’s shape and becomes a topper for ice
cream, or the extremely dark chocolate birthday cake I made three years ago for my
daughter’s 2nd birthday that actually tasted bitter (it was ok if
you ate every bite with some frosting and my chocolate loving daughter had no
trouble finishing her giant piece). But the
meals I cooked up for breakfast yesterday and today were a different story.
In my defense, these were recipes largely based on ones published
in magazines, so someone, somewhere, thought they were good. I did make some subtle changes, adding in
organic whole grains, extra cinnamon, different fruit and nut combinations, etc…
but nothing that could place the blame solely on my cooking techniques. I must say, my husband is a trooper and
despite realizing either initially or after a few bites that what I had placed
before him was actually pretty unsatisfying, he ate a large portion of each of
these recipes while we both had a good laugh and I threw my meal away.
I have included the two recipes below, in case anyone wants to try
something I wouldn’t recommend or thinks they know of a more edible method
of preparing versions of them. The first
is a recipe for a twist on a carrot cake muffin using beets instead of shredded
carrot. I have never been a fan of beets and these muffins smell and taste like beets. My husband likes beets which is why I think he was able to eat two of these muffins and
asked me to save them in the freezer “just in case” (I didn’t).
Maybe there isn’t enough sugar or cinnamon or the usual raisins and
coconut that is found in carrot cake, but I just found them to be gross. Beautiful to look at, extremely light and
moist, and completely unpleasant tasting.
Both of my kids took one bite and looked as if they were going to
die. I felt really bad and of course
gave them something else immediately.
The second recipe, which was this morning’s disaster and the
inspiration for this more comedic blog post, is one that I have heard mentioned
on TV shows, in numerous magazines and even on the package of quinoa
itself. It is a breakfast cereal
creation in the style of oatmeal but using the highly nutritious grain quinoa
instead of oats. Sounds simple enough,
but the flavor of the quinoa, and the smell, does not go well with blueberries,
lemon and cinnamon. As my husband so
nicely commented while eating more than half of his large bowl (I ate about 4
bites total), “quinoa is not a breakfast food.”
I have to agree, unless you are in the habit of eating savory dishes for
breakfast, because although my husband has never liked quinoa in general, I have
found it palatable as a rice substitute cooked with beans, onion, garlic and
plenty of other strong savory spices. But as an oatmeal substitute? Never again!!
So although my breakfasts these past few days have been tragic
disappointments and I had to break my steadfast rule on wasting food and
literally throw it all away, I do plan on redeeming myself later on this afternoon
with a delicious batch of chocolate filled peanut butter fudge drops and a
delicious pasta dish with homemade spinach pesto. Here’s to hoping that those creations turn
out well!!
