Adventures in Cooking

Well, in my prior food post I mentioned that I ruined a meal. Well, I'll tell you how that happened in a moment. In addition to already have ruined one meal, I just recently escaped ruining another.

Tonight we are having Lemon-Garlic Chicken. The recipe called for 4 cloves of chopped garlic in addition to three other liquids that once mixed together amounted to just under a 1/2 cup. Well, I've never prepared garlic fresh. This was new to me. You should have seen my confusion when I was looking at this 1/2 cup of liquid and 3 items of garlic. You also should have seen my surprise when I attempted to cut into this baby. Mind you, I didn't know what to expect. Anyway, it split into many different pieces that were separated by what appears to be onion skin.

So, I'm looking at all of these pieces, each one needing to be pealed and the thought occurs to me, since this is for a marinade, do I really need to peal of these bad boys? Well, to my dismay, when I call my mom, she's not home. I called my dad and Steffy and him are already asleep. What am I do to now? Thankfully Colleen was visiting Dana. She was able to set me straight. Was I supposed to know that the full item of garlic is called a bulb and a single piece is called a clove? I thought the bulb was a clove.

Well, it is a good thing that I asked this simple question, I would have certainly ruined our dinner for the night. There is a huge difference between 4 cloves of garlic and 4 bulbs (I only had 3 anyway, but the point remains the same).

So, the other meal that I did ruin. Chilled Cucumber Soup. Ok, don't laugh, you're thinking to yourself, "How do you ruin soup?" Well, apparently it doesn't take much. Of the few of you out there that have ever watched me cook something, I have a tendency to play with spices. Even odd ones for the application. I'm about certain that my cinnamon accented steak is common knowledge by now or even the chocolate sauce flavored chicken. So those should give you an example of the weird things that I've been known to do. Well, one spice that I've kept distance from has been cayenne.

Most people also know that I'm not one for the spicy foods, so this also stands to reason. Anyway, this recipe for Chilled Cucumber Soup called for 1/16 teaspoon of cayenne. Well, the smallest teaspoon that we have is 1/4 teaspoon. Apparently my estimation skills are a bit lacking when it comes to contents of a teaspoon. The presentation of the soup was nice. It looked good, it smelled good, and it even taste good with one exception, it had bite. This wasn't just a simple, mild bite. It was offensive. The bite didn't hit immediately either. It was just before the swallow. Hell, the aftertaste wasn't bad either. Anyway, neither one of us could tolerate the kick in our soup. In hindsight, I've realized that instead of 1/16 tsp, I actually used something closer to 1/8 tsp. From what I can tell now, I think that even 1/16 might be too much. I think I'll just use a 1/4 pinch on the next attempt.

Well, as we progress through our new dietary plan, I'm sure we'll screw something up again along the way. Stay tuned.