If there is one thing I would like people to take away from this blog, it would be that you can do this too. I don't have any special training in cooking or photography. I shoot my pictures with a Canon A400 point and shoot and work in a typical American kitchen. The things I post are things we actually eat for dinner which means I am trying to take photos before the food gets cold. For better or worse, we (or my co-workers) eat everything you see. Luckily, I have a staff of hungry young men with high metabolisms to take care of any blog rejects. Sometimes I am still sad to see recipes and photos that I put time into just sit in my blog photo folder and eventually end up in the recycle bin on my computer.
So, I thought why not share them. Consider these the Arctic Garden Studio outtakes. Don't worry, it's ok to laugh!
1.This was my second attempt at donut muffins. I have already had one full size donut muffin post. This time I used a different recipe, this one from Orangette and I made them in mini muffin tins to give them a better donut hole appearance. I also dunked the entire donut in butter, cinnamon, and sugar. Honestly, these were way better than the ones I posted previously. Does one cooking blog really need two donut muffin posts? Probably not.
2. These steaks were delicious, the sauce not so much. The New York strip steaks came from our new local Home Grown Market. My only wish is that I had not topped them with this sauce from the Pioneer Woman's cookbook.
3. Oh, St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake I really wanted to love you. You sounded like the perfect take to work treat. Unfortunately, your gooey layer could not make up for the dry tasteless cake layer. You photographed so lovely, but I just can't let my readers (all 10 of you) make this cake. I'm sorry your 10,000 calories just aren't worth it. I still took you to work, but that will be the last time.
4. Why did I even think this would be good? I'll admit that the original recipe call for ham on the bottom, but that would not have saved this rubbery egg disaster.
5. This one was probably one of my biggest disappointments, not only had a dreamed about this gelato from David Leibovitz for over a year, but I dished out a pretty penny for the pistachio paste required to make it. I am not beyond spending money on specialty ingredients, but when they are that expensive I expect a lot from the finished product. Honestly, I think it might have been ok if I had only used half the jar, but with the whole jar it was cloying at best. Really, I'm not sure I would have been pleased with ok had I used half the jar. I have loved everything I have ever cooked from David Leibovitz's blog (and cookbooks for that matter), but I will be a little more cautious with the expensive ingredients in the future. I am assuming he thought nobody would actually dish out the money to make this recipe!
6. This one I'm pretty sure was my fault. I will definitely be giving the recipe another try and hope to post about it in the future. Check out the photo on A Piece of Cake, you will see how absolutely beautiful Shauna's version of Millionaire's Shortbread is. Actually her whole blog is beautiful and I want to eat everything she makes. The shortbread part of this is delicious and the chocolate layer is great, the problem I had was that she recommended making the caramel in the microwave, I don't own one. I made Dulce de Leche instead and it just wasn't solid enough to stand up in these cookie bars. It oozed out all over the place. They were really good and tasty, just not pretty. I am determined to make them pretty.
7. This one I didn't post out of pride. The photos just didn't turn out well. Also, I'm not sure chicken was the best thing to pair this very bizarre sounding Blueberry Mustard Sauce with. All I could think the whole time I was eating it is how good it would taste on Venison. This is a true wild game kind of sauce. If you do decide to make it I'll let you know that I swapped out shallots for the onions and sherry for the wine because it was all I had.
8. I had really wanted to do a post about the new sushi place that opened in Fairbanks. Ok, not so new it opened last September, but I don't think it is getting the attention it deserves. The News Miner did a good story on the place a while back. I highly recommend it, and they have spider rolls. The only complaint is that they have terrible lighting for photos! Really, that is my only complaint, the food, cleanliness, service were all above and beyond. For those in the know they are one block up from the chowder house on 3rd street.
What a lovely honest post, I feel I should do one like this as I too have a huge backlog, as well as some things hiding out. I don't have them in a nice folder though, just sitting in random places on the computer.
ReplyDeleteI have a great recipe for millionaires shortbread...perhaps you could just use the caramel part and add it to the shortbread and chocolate. I'll add it to the list of things to send once I finally get that package sorted!
This was a fun one. It's kind of comforting to know that not every recipe works out for every cook (with way more than 10 readers) every time. Thanks for working through the flops to bring us the best!
ReplyDeleteI am thinking about making this a regular (monthly) post. It was kind of fun! The funny part was the fire photo in the middle, David was burning off the brush piles in our yard and I was taking photos. You looked at me like I was a nut and I said, "You never know when I will need a fire photo for the blog". Didn't actually think I would find a use for it so soon.
ReplyDeleteRebecca- I'm just going to start coming to you for all my recipes!!
I admire your honest opinion and am sad to hear you didn't enjoy the recipe for Herb-Baked Eggs. That said, it's hard to judge a recipe fairly if you've not followed it to a T.
ReplyDeleteWhile that particular recipe is a specialty of the inn who submitted it, I baked it myself (at home) and loved it, not finding the baked eggs rubbery at all.
In this case, I think leaving the moist, ham base out of the recipe is an omission that changes the recipe entirely. I'm not surprised you found the eggs a disaster. Maybe, someday, you'll give the recipe a second chance. But as each cook knows, not every recipe is for every cook or every eater's tastes. This I understand :)
Happy baking!
Sandie- You are correct, I did not follow the recipe to a T. I certainly did not mean to offend anyone. I will remove the link from the post.
ReplyDelete-Nicole