Recipes--Only One Success Story

As many of you know, I love food and I love to cook. Two weeks ago I decided I was going on a new recipe binge and only making new recipes for a week. However, at the end of the week I thought it had been a total bust. First, I made the pasta carbonara recipe Pastor Ryan posted on pioneer woman cooks. http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/09/cooking-with-ryan-pasta-carbonara/

The first night I didn't like it much at all. Edible--but not worth the effort. Timothy felt the same. Miriam praised me to high heaven for making her favorite food (bacon), picked out the bacon and left the rest. The other two offspring picked at it a little but didn't really get too excited.

Then the second night, when we ate it as leftovers--I thought it was fantastic. Some foods do improve with some sit time. However, when I expressed my thoughts to Timothy he told me that my pregnancy taste buds were unreliable and changed daily. Perhaps I've asked him if something "tastes normal" a few too many times this pregnancy. He didn't think the dish improved with age.

After that--my ability to pick new recipes became even more questionable. I have always liked the idea of stuffed pork chops, but have never found a recipe I liked. This time, I tried a pork chop stuffed with blue cheese. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Blue-Cheese-Bacon-and-Chive-Stuffed-Pork-Chops/Detail.aspx. What a disaster. I've had blue cheese in the past on sandwiches and in salads, and always enjoyed it. What I didn't realize is that the blue cheese was spread amongst many other flavors, so I didn't get the full impact. I didn't like the full impact. Tim managed to eat his. The rest of it got thrown away.

But I love pork chops--and I love mushrooms--so I tried again. This time with a pork chop and mushroom dish. http://www.recipezaar.com/152871. Um--in a word, boring. Edible, despite the recipe encouraging you to overcook your chops by about three hours (exaggeration). I cut the cooking time in half and they were still overcooked. But, the worst part was that I expected all this flavor, and the only part that was flavorful were the onions. Miriam did keep trying to steal my mushrooms--but even they lacked real flavor (and I LOVE mushrooms!). The recipe could probably be amended and improved (some worcestershire sauce usually improves everything--actually cooking your mushrooms long enough for the flavor to emerge helps also), but I was pretty disappointed with the end result.

Just when I thought the new recipe splurge was a complete bust--I hit on this recipe. http://video.about.com/chinesefood/Spicy-Beef-Cold-Rice-Noodles.htm.

Try it. You'll thank me later.