Fantastic Failures

With filters, flashes and staging we can all create beautiful dishes that are bright, clean and just dripping with perfection. Its like the rest of the internet; all a bit fake and you only post the good stuff.

Life is not an Instagram photo – its gritty, unflattering and a little rough around the edges.

Most dishes I post are my tried and true recipes but sometimes I try something new.
Beta Tester (aka Hubby, Babbah, SH and the man of the house) sometimes says YES add that to menu list and sometimes sheepishly says…thanks honey but that was awful. Here are a few failures you should NOT try or use them as inspiration to make it BETTER.

GINGER GARLIC SHRIMP WITH QUINOA and GREENS
This dishes sounds amazing, all the right ingredients are there and this should be one pot wonder that is a staple – WRONG. Made quinoa a day ahead with chicken stock – should be amazing light and flavorful, healthy. Anything you can prep ahead of time is helpful.

Fresh shrimp – good (frozen – but defrosted properly over 24 hour in the fridge) wild caught Key West shrimp ($16 dollars worth to be exact)

Asparagus and Green Beans – fresh cut, not frozen and pretty tender

Garlic & Ginger – using the microblade, shredded up fresh with a few dashes of
sesame oil…all good ingredients

FAIL – this dish looks so pretty, stir fried the greens and shrimp then folded in the quinoa.

It’s healthy and was actually not bad the night of serving (a bit bland) but I figured the flavors would be even stronger the next day for lunch. FAIL FAIL FAIL….its was awful.I may actually try it again, but AMP UP the flavor and maybe add some Chinese Five Spice or something because it tasted like flat, limp shrimp with wilted greens.

GINGER TUMERIC CHIA SMOOTHIE
Another beautiful failure. I was trying to be “Pintrest Fabulous” with lots of healthy ingredients stuffed into a yummy smoothie. Poor Babbah, he got a mouthful of hot, spicy ginger with a weird tangy mango, some gooey chia seeds, bland vanilla protein and the grit of tumeric. It was a beautiful color and the first gulp went down okay…but by the end my stomach was on fire from all the ginger and the glop on the bottom from the expanded chia seeds was foul.

KEILBASA with CAULIFLOWER RICE and ZUCCHINI
This was supposed to be an easy, one pot meal with all my favorite ingredients. NOPE. I used pre-made cauliflower rice from Green Giant – frozen section (time saver) but it did nothing for the flavor or texture. I pre-grilled the turkey keilbasa to get some good color and flavor yet it was over powered by the smell of cauliflower and the chewy zucchini. Lots of garlic and some parmesan cheese should have made this a hit, but it was just a one note, kinda smelly and definitely offended both offices during lunch.

On a happier note, we’ve decorated for the Holidays and Ginger has enjoyed lots of snuggly time with her family especially as the temperatures have dropped severely. We did some nice snowy walks for our first snow of the season.