When Reckless Cooking Goes Wrong

I was trying to think of a word the way I cook. Besides "reckless" or "unusual", I was at a loss. If you think of something cooler let me know. Although being reckless is pretty cool. Maybe I'll go buy a van and put a mattress in the back. I totally would, but then where would I put my car seat? Uh, mo babiez mo problemz. 

I got 99 problemz but a snack ain't one.

In the interest of honesty and keepin' it realz (sorry, that's enough Zs for now) I am going to show you an at home try that didn't go so well. It wasn't the end of the world. It's not like I burned a $40 cut of meat or something. It just WAS NOT good. It was even kind of bad.

Here's another fun confession... I still don't know exactly what my ingredient was. I was trying to use a white squash that we had gotten in our farmhouse delivery. I looked up what I thought was information on it online. Most things said it was very mild and very bland. Grilling squash was getting really old so I decided to try and bake it. I was also doing some roasted green beans. That turned out just fine.

Mystery squash and my bag of green beans.

 I decided to slice the squash and layer the slices in a loaf pan drizzling EV Olive Oil and grated Parmesan in between the layers. It started out like this:

Then went on to look like this:

 I hat lots of trial and error figuring out how to slice them and cut them and getting annoyed with this stupid white squash. Those times looked like this:

I'm sad to say this is where the photo story ends. I layered them and put them in the oven at 400 degrees and cooked them for 30 minutes or so. I really only did one thing wrong that caused a whole bunch of other wrongs... I didn't know my ingredient. This squash was not the one I had found online. While it did have bland flavor it also had very tough skin and I probably should have scraped the seeds out before cooking it. The seeds didn't cook to a soft enough consistency as they usually do in other squashes. But then again, maybe if I had cooked it longer the skin wouldn't have been so tough AND the seeds would have been softer. I have no idea.

This was a mess to eat because of my mistakes. The skin was just too tough and it was a mess cutting around the skin and the seeds to find the meat of the squash. In reality, when I actually got down to the meat of this, it was still not that great. It is just a really, really bland and flavorless squash. 

Here is what happens when you screw things up: you LEARN... Wait, what? I know. Write this stuff down, it is life changing information. 

Every once in a while everyone gets a nice kick in the a$$ reminder. My reminder was to really find out what I am cooking before moving forward. I think winging it is fine and easy, if you know your ingredient. That's when reckless cooking is the most fun. THAT is why I LOVE cooking recklessly. You have the basics down and you are just playing with flavors and styles of cooking. When you don't know your ingredient you end up chewing tough skin and swallowing something like a pumpkin seed. Yum. Who wants to come over and eat now? 

You know who else learned something? Whoever made the bottom half of these cupcakes.

Sorry kids, mommy killed cookie monster. He melted in her oven.

My squash tasted awful, but at least it looked pretty. That, my friends, is called optimism. We're all about the bright side over here.

There are big things coming up for RT... stay tuned this week to catch all of the amazingness. It's going to be a good! 

- RT