Can you believe it’s already New Year’s Eve? What?!
And how can I wrap up 2015 without sharing with you the worst of Cooking with a Wallflower?
I already shared with you the best of the best here. And I’ve shared with you the best of the best of 2014. And also the recipe fails of 2014. So now, it’s time for me to share with you some of my 2015 recipe fails.
Because you know, it’s not always perfect in my kitchen. The photos you see are the final results, but all the behind the scene things you didn’t see? Well, don’t worry. I photographed them too, just in case you wanted to see what those look like. There has to be a ton of fails in order for there to be a success. So if you guys have experienced failure in the kitchen, don’t give up. Because trust me, I still have a lot of them. You just get better with time.
My most recent fail?
Green Tea White Chocolate Bark with Pomegranate.
Um. WTH! I’ve melted chocolate so many times in the past. I’ve made Peppermint Bark and Rosemary Sea Salt White Chocolate as well as others and they came out fine. But this Green Tea White Chocolate?! Um…. Can you even tell that’s supposed to be melted chocolate? Because I swear it looks like green goop. Oily green goop. And when I tried to stir with a spoon? I think I just learned how to make Play Doh.
Would you eat this?
Remember the apple cranberry pie from a couple weeks ago? Well, the first version, I cut the apples into cubes. Worse decision ever. The pie did not hold together. And while it tasted amazing, this is what it looked like in photos. A little misshaped.
Creamy Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken (or at least, it’s supposed to be). Can you even tell that it’s chicken?
I’ll be the first to admit that while chicken is a favorite ingredient of mine. It is not the most photogenic food out there. At least, not with me doing the plating. Which is why the majority of the time, I use chicken as a side ingredient and not a main ingredient.
Still don’t believe that chicken and I aren’t friends?
What about this garlic onion chicken something?
Yeast and I aren’t that best friends either. I’m impatient. Which is why many of my recipes are quick and easy. I don’t like having to wait for the dough to rise before I can use it.
And then of course, when I’m feeling up to trying it out, I mess it up by overdoing things. Like, I wanted to turn my Cheesy Garlic Pull Apart Bread into a crust. Which is a good thing because that bread is so amazing. Except, for some reason, I thought that each whole cheesy garlic pull apart bread could be an entire crust for a 9 inch pizza. Do you know how much crust that is? It’s thick. And what did I decide to do? Make two batches. So I actually had two 9 inch pizzas made with two recipes of cheesy garlic pull apart bread on the same day.
Carbs galore for dinner that night. No one in my family wanted bread or pizza for awhile.
However, I will make pizza again because the filling was really good.
My attempt at miso soup. As tasty as it was, I cannot seem to make my miso soup look amazing. Sadness.
I can’t even contemplate why I thought blood orange, bananas, and avocado would work together on toast. Don’t ask. I don’t know. Lol
I can’t even remember what this was supposed to be. It was either my attempt at Pad Thai with Soba Noodles or Pad Kee Mao.I’m not even sure. But would you eat this if I served it to you? No? Don’t worry. You can be honest. I’m not offended. I wouldn’t either.
And lastly, while this recipe is fine, I placed the crushed candy canes too soon after the cookies came out of the oven. This is what melted crushed candy canes look like on a cookie. In case you wanted to serve them to Santa.
And that’s a wrap for 2015!
See you in 2016!
Gnome Photo says
Love that you are able to share your dud experiences! I think so many people get intimidated by food bloggers. It is refreshing to see someone admit that not everything turns out perfectly the first go around, and that some recipes just don’t work! 🙂
Thanks for the recent like on my blog post. Hope to see you again!
Vicky V says
Thank you for posting these. I’m not going to forget that green tea white chocolate for a while 🙂
jjwinekeywest says
You have a wonderful website – please let me know how I can improve my website so that someday I can look back on the failures and laugh – like you have done!
gonzobae says
I think the miso soup looks fine! Thanks for such a candid post!
housewifexhouselife says
your pizzas look really good! If you want them to have a little more life when you take the photos, brush the crust lightly with oil. Not a whole lot, but ust enough to make the ashy-ness of the crust disappear. If you do it as soon as the pizza comes out of the oven, the heat will help it evaporate and absorb into the crust, giving it a pretty golden color and not a greasy or oily look.
<3
Andrea| Cooking with a Wallflower says
Thanks for the tip! I’ll make sure to do that the next time I make pizza =)
hdemare says
The fails are what makes us better at the successes. I had an epic fail on a wild mushroom pizza. Even my twenty-something son wouldn’t eat it. It started with a cup of ricotta, mixed with one once of goat cheese. Spread on precooked pizza crust. (Boboli) Then add sauteed leeks and the sauteed mushrooms. I used aged goat cheese (because it was on sale). Big mistake. It make the whole thing taste moldy. Yuck! Did it again with fresh, and it now it is one of my favorites.
Susan says
This post is great! By the way your creamy sun dried chicken still looks (and sounds) tasty to me. Posting your “fails” makes us home cooks feel a bit better about our attempts too, so thank you!!! 😛
Kaylee Spinhirn says
I really love this!! Makes me feel more human 🙂
Rick Williams PGA says
Really funny post! Love that you can poke fun at yourself and share 🙂
Noelle Poulson says
Brilliant post! Thanks for sharing 🙂