Day 21-Have I told you recently that I can’t cook? Nothing really turns out the way it’s supposed to. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Ok, I guess I can’t say nothing turns out right, but most of it doesn’t. It’s not pretty. There has to be a better way. The better way for me would be if Anthony could cook every night or if I won the lottery and could hire a cook.
My most recent foray into cooking wasn’t the worst of the worst. It just didn’t taste like what I thought it would taste like. I made Ravioli with Sage-Walnut Butter. That sounded good to me. Of course I forgot that Anthony can’t eat most nuts without having an allergic reaction. Oops!! He is going to have to help me start picking out recipes for the week. Otherwise I end up with a bunch of stuff that he doesn’t like!
Anyway so in my mind this was perfect. We are trying not to eat red sauce, because we both get bad heartburn from it (we're old, what can I say!). Sage-walnut butter sauce sounded like a good alternative to red sauce or pesto, which is what I normally use on pasta. I did not make my own ravioli, let’s be realistic! The creating this meal description will be boring so I’m not going to bother with it, I’ll just say it went fine. For a second I thought the butter was going to burn, but I was able to save it just in the nick of time. I did burn the balsamic syrup a little bit, but not in a way that the dish was ruined.
Finished Product: 
The main problem with this dish is that it was sweet. We are more of savory people when it comes to entrees. I didn’t realize that the honey would make it so sweet and then the walnuts also made the dish sweeter. So unless you are into eating sweet for dinner, this recipe just doesn’t work. Sorry Food Network Magazine. I’m not impressed. I won’t give up on you yet though. I’ve got another recipe I plan on using this weekend from the same issue, a squash soup.
Ok so I know in the beginning of this post I sounded hopeless. It wasn’t the above recipe that did me in. It’s a recipe that I made last night and will post about tomorrow. It was just a complete disaster. That put me into another funk, which I really didn’t want to have happen. I’m trying to be positive and optimistic about cooking, but even entering the kitchen with a smile on my face didn’t help last night. More on that tomorrow.
Oh yeah last weekend while Anthony was away I decided to cook a dish with eggplant, since he doesn't eat eggplant. I found the recipe for Curried Eggplant with Chickpeas and Spinach on Food & Wine, so I figured it had to be pretty tasty. Once again the cooking process went well. The only part of the recipe I struggled with was mashing the garlic into a paste. As hard as I tried using many different tools, I could not mash the garlic. Anyone know how to accomplish this? I'm not sure if not making the garlic into a paste was where I went wrong with this dish. After roasting the vegetables for 30 minutes with a garlic, curry powder, and veggie oil coating everything looked okay. Once I had everything plated (I made basmati rice and Naan bread to go with it) it still looked really good. First bite, yuck! Fail! I mostly completed the recipe the way I was supposed to and yet these vegetables had no flavor. It was the most bland thing I have ever cooked! What a disappointment! I love having vegetarian dishes when Anthony is away and had really been looking forward to the eggplant.
Final Product: 
I'm really hoping with these two recipes that it was the recipe and not me that made these meals not good. Although when you see my next post, you might think it's all my fault. Until then...keep cooking!
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