Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The stars were not aligned in my favor...

So, I think if I were into horoscopes, my fortune for last Friday would have told me to STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN!!!
I was very excited to be making two delicious recipes, and they both failed miserably!
So, I am going back to those recipes, and editing them. Just thought I'd let you all know.

First off, we have the Sloppy Dudes I have been raving about. So I made a full batch of this stuff on Friday, hoping to stock up for the weekend so I wouldn't have to cook. My rolls, by the way, turned out better, but they're still needing work, so I'll post them another day. I don't know if it was because I had made a smaller portion the first time or what, but the ratios were way off when I followed the recipe for a full batch.
Problem #1: When using a lime in this recipe, be sure and use a SMALL lime (or a quarter of a larger, lemon sized lime). Both my avocado mash and the meat filling were very strongly lime-y. Still good, but a bit overpowering.
Problem #2: I don't know what happened here, but a full cup of chicken stock was WAY too much for this recipe. I ended up draining about half a cup, after letting the whole thing simmer an extra 10 minutes to try and reduce the sauce. I think I may have an idea of what I did differently (added the correct number of tomatillos this time, as opposed to a couple less the first time I made it), but I don't see how the measurements are off. I recommend just pouring in half the amount of stock, and adding more if needed.


On to dessert. I'm headed to a family reunion this weekend, and we've got a few people eating gluten free, so I am in charge of bringing some safe goodies for everyone to enjoy. Well, the almond flour vanilla cupcakes I made were such a hit, I figured I'd bring them. I thought I'd make a batch and throw them in the freezer to save myself some last-minute work . Since we've got a lot of mouths to feed, I thought I'd change the recipe just a bit, by making mini-cupcakes. So I followed the recipe exactly the same, simply pouring the batter into a mini-cupcake pan, which I had covered with cooking spray. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to do. These puppies NEED to be baked in paper-lined cups. I couldn't get a single one out of the pan. And let me just say, I didn't go easy on the pan spray either. I was worried about the tops overflowing, and sticking to the pan. Well, I had the opposite problem. All the tops came off fine...just without the rest of the cupcake :P
So, for this recipe edit, I am stressing the need for lining the muffin cups with paper! Unless you want to enjoy your cupcakes in crumbs (which turned out to be pretty good with sliced strawberries and melted DF chocolate). Hubby enjoyed eating the tops for breakfast as well, so all was not lost.

This just goes to show you, even those of us who have been doing this whole cooking thing for awhile still get it wrong once in awhile :)

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