590 replies to this topic

[Carrot Top]

All kidding aside for the moment, really there are some plates of food that can be made to look absolutely magnificent. Yet that is no assurance that what hits your mouth will be delicious.

Sometimes these things that are not so photogenic can surprise with oodles of taste and flavors.

And that is what it really is about, isn't it?

As they say, "You can not always tell a book by its cover."

......................................................................

You are all brave good souls to post your army of bowls and plates full of personality and ideas for all of us to enjoy.

Do please find more.

[liamsaunt]

Here is a picture of some spinach ricotta gnocchi I made last week. The gnocchi were very tasty and light, but I added too much sauce, and with the melting mozzarella, I don't know, it kind of looks like a surgical experiment gone wrong



Somehow, I think more of my photos will end up here than in the nice "dinner!" thread...

PS: First attempt at posting a picture, sorry if it does not work!

edit: thanks Smithy for the posting tips!

Edited by liamsaunt, 21 September 2005 - 06:21 AM.

[Smithy]

These photos are very funny and very humbling. I'm sorry to say that some of my photos show glossy meat, glossy sauced pastas...and here I was so proud of them!

[Carrot Top]

Here is a picture of some spinach ricotta gnocchi I made last week.  The gnocchi were very tasty and light, but I added too much sauce, and with the melting mozzarella, I don't know, it kind of looks like a surgical experiment gone wrong 

Somehow, I think more of my photos will end up here than in the nice "dinner!" thread...

PS: First attempt at posting a picture, sorry if it does not work!

This looks like something Carl Sagan would use to demonstrate The Universe, really.

Hey. The "nice" dinner thread is very nice. But here, you get to compete among thousands for the silliest-looking things ever. Gloves are off, competition is strong.

I'm thinking that a nice little show in a gallery on the Upper East Side would not be remiss as the collection grows.

The only question would be: What would we serve at the Opening?

[Soup]

another miso soup, this time with sweet potato and niboshi (dried baby sardines), it really tastes good but it just looks like dead fish floating in the soup...

The way you describe it is really funny, but it actually looks pretty tasty to me.

I understand what you say, Pan, but I must tell you that to me it looks like the Cuyahoga River did in about 1962.

Put a bit of alcohol and flambe it. Then it'll look the the ohio river.

[wattacetti]

Okay, I've already posted this ad nauseum, but I paid $14 for this…



This is a plate I made almost 2 years ago; I think they're boneless chicken legs stuffed with something (?) sitting atop rapini and sweet potato. The rapini's a nice green but I don't know what I was thinking: apart from a sauce that went MIA, it looks like I'm serving pathology sections.



This mess I created this evening:



Had a bottle of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo that I wanted to get rid of, and there were these two dead pheasants sitting in the freezer, so figured it was a good time to braise some bird. Well…

Note to self: learn how to braise game birds.
The broccoli and the smashed potato that looks like wallpaper paste gone bad tasted okay, but nothing else did.

The other lesson learned: don't plate anything with broccoli.

[torakris]

I eat little dead fish a lot...




and then there are the squid legs




and this looks so unappetizing but it is incredibly good! thin slices of pork belly layered with Chinese cabbage and doused with ponzu sauce

[wattacetti]

I eat little dead fish a lot...

Hey, I had this at a restaurant in Taiwan. Yours looks better than what I remembered.

[Carrot Top]

I can't quite decide whether those squid legs are smiling or ready to attack, torakris.

[handmc]

The squid pieces look like Mr. Potato Head parts, part of his "spuds in drag collection"

Edited by handmc, 23 September 2005 - 10:04 PM.

[mizducky]

Somehow I hadn't gotten around to reading this thread until now. Oh. My. God. You people are a riot.

And it's a shame that I'm home alone right now, so that there's nobody to wander by and ask why I'm making strangled guffawing noises, in response to which I can then show them the photos that engendered said noises and cause them to run away screaming. (Fearless Housemate has a real low threshold for the "ick" reaction. )

I'm pretty wiped out right now, but tomorrow I gotta haul out the camera and take some photos of the regrettable concoction currently hiding in shame in my refrigerator. Gotta share the pain, y'know.

[Rachel Perlow]

another miso soup, this time with sweet potato and niboshi (dried baby sardines), it really tastes good but it just looks like dead fish floating in the soup...

Uh, it is dead fish floating in soup. They are dead, aren't they?

[Chufi]

OK I actually posted this picture in the Dinner! thread, because the dish was part of my |talian feast, but the more I look at it, the more I am convinced that it's right home is here in this thread.
It's pasta with a roasted tomato/porcini sauce.. the sauce tasted fantastic.. but these are some weird pasta shapes.. the packet says they're called Riccioli, but ..doesn't this just look like maggots in tomato-sauce??



edited to add picture

Edited by Chufi, 24 September 2005 - 07:21 AM.

[mizducky]

  Yeah, and there's a particularly fat and tasty-looking one over on the lower right hand side. Save that one for me. 

Heheheheheh ... reminds me of a parody-doggerel from my grade school days:

"Oh say can you see
Any bedbugs on me?
If you do, take a few,
But leave some for me!"

Okay, now it's time for me to ante up, and I can't believe how much embarrassment I had to fight in order to post the following beauteous picture:

This unattractive slop is a result of the bad convergence of several of my peculiar food behaviors:
1) My mom trained me so well to avoid wasting food that I can't bear to throw out leftovers, no matter how uninspiring they may be;
2) This in turn evolved into a penchant for trying to combine leftovers in various ways in an attempt to conceal their flaws;
3) When said combinations don't succeed as desired, I have a tendency to try throwing in additional stuff in an attempt to salvage the dish.

So ... I had some leftover garbanzo beans and brown rice. I also had a left-over first attempt at cooking nopales--I didn't care for the finished product's taste or texture, but because of behavior (1), I just couldn't bring myself to simply toss 'em and try again (I have since learned that I should have gone for the really small paddles, instead of the big ones I got).

I also had about a half-can's worth of leftover chipotle chiles in adobo, and some fresh roma tomatos, so I got the brilliant idea of combining them all and making some kind of stew/chili/thang. So I started a little mirepoix of onions/celery/carrot in a big pot, and then threw in all the other stuff to simmer. Realizing I needed a bit more liquid in there, I thought of another leftover in the fridge, this some (very jelled!) broth left from a batch of stewed pig's feet (which, while tasty, could have provided another photo worthy of this thread, but alas I didn't think to snap any).

Anyway, so in went the jelled broth too, which did quickly liquefy. Everything seemed to be humming along quite nicely, but the finished flavor--urk. The chipotles and adobo were way too strong, drowning out almost everything else ... except those damn nopales, whose flavor, texture, and even odor were still putting me off.

But could I leave well enough alone? Of course not! I had to try adding a can of tomato sauce, to see if it would even things out. It didn't. And the result is this gelatinous mass of red ... stuff. To be sure, this is straight out of the fridge, and it would loosen up some if heated. But trust me, it doesn't look (or taste) any more appetizing when hot.

The saddest thing of all is that I still can't quite bring myself to throw this mess out. Not that I can bring myself to eat it either. I'll probably wind up keeping it in the fridge until it either goes haz-mat or just gets too much in the way, and then it'll get tossed (no doubt along with the disposable plastic container I've placed it in, which by that point will be contaminated past the point of no return).

Whew. Okay, my conscience is clear. (Of that mess, at any rate.)

Edited by mizducky, 24 September 2005 - 03:39 PM.

[Smithy]

Mizducky, I think you managed to concoct something that even my dog wouldn't touch!
But I do admire your thrifty behavior.

Now really, folks, I refuse to go looking through photos I posted proudly on other threads. I'm sure I'll manage something before long anyway. Does anyone want to see a pot of canning water after a jar of tomatoes has broken in the hot water bath?

[mizducky]

 
Mizducky, I think you managed to concoct something that even my dog wouldn't touch!
    But I do admire your thrifty behavior. 

Heh. Unfortunately, like coupon-clipping and other such theoretically-thrifty behaviors, the reality is hardly thrifty at all. In fact, I wasted some perfectly good tomatoes and garbanzo beans on that slop. I should remember that the next time I'm tempted to be "thrifty" this way.

[M. Lucia]

Chufi, I never would have thought your pasta looks unappetizing, but now that you mention it... The thing is, the little ridges hold the sauce, so I like to tell myself the funny shape has a practicality.

MizzDucky, I share your penchant for reusing leftovers (in all sorts of weird ways). It is a good place for new discoveries. However, I think even I would draw the line at jelled broth. Now comes the part where you remove it from the fridge, walk outside, and put it in your neighbors garbage can (to absolve yourself of any evidence).

[Pan]

  Yeah, and there's a particularly fat and tasty-looking one over on the lower right hand side. Save that one for me. 

Heheheheheh ... reminds me of a parody-doggerel from my grade school days:

"Oh say can you see
Any bedbugs on me?
If you do, take a few,
But leave some for me!"

Hmm...My classmate in 8th grade used to sing:

"Oh say can you see
Any roaches on me?
If you do, take a few,
they look better on you!"

But, getting back on topic, sort of [smile], if you can't bear for this dish that you don't want to eat go to waste, take it somewhere where there are birds that would eat it or something. It used to be easy for us in rural Malaysia: Whatever leftover rice or leftover most everything we didn't want, the chickens would come and eat it.

[handmc]

I did the procini sauce thing tonight with boucotini, it looked like intestine.

[mizducky]

But, getting back on topic, sort of [smile], if you can't bear for this dish that you don't want to eat go to waste, take it somewhere where there are birds that would eat it or something. It used to be easy for us in rural Malaysia: Whatever leftover rice or leftover most everything we didn't want, the chickens would come and eat it.

Oh dear ... I'd be afraid the birds would fly over our house afterwards and, erm, recycle the end-product.

[Staximo]

I usually delete and try to forget awful photo but sometimes one survive:



the photo is orrible but the "filetto in crosta" was delicious: a pork filet filled with dried tomatoes (preserved in olive oil) and cocked inside a puff pastry crust.

Edited by Staximo, 28 September 2005 - 01:57 AM.

[Carrot Top]

the photo is orrible but it was delicious: a pork filet filled with dried tomatoes (preserved in olive oil) and cocked inside a puff pastry crust.

As they say, "you can not always tell a book by its cover".


Thank you for waking me up this morning. The coffee was not really doing the trick.

[dockhl]

mizducky~

When making glass beads and not knowing when to say"enuf!', we call that 'gilding the turd' !!

[Taubear]

This is a very funny tread I have been chortling and gfawing all morning whilst sitting at my office desk. I even managed a snigger which turned to some very loud snorts. Made my day.

[xdrixn]

Mom?

[mizducky]

mizducky~

When making glass beads and not knowing when to say"enuf!', we call that 'gilding the turd' !!

Well, y'all will be happy to know that, with all the support and encouragement you have given me here, my culinary "gilded turd" has succeeded in finding its way into the trash. Ahhhh, the feeling of liberation!

[dockhl]

mizducky~

When making glass beads and not knowing when to say"enuf!', we call that 'gilding the turd' !!

Well, y'all will be happy to know that, with all the support and encouragement you have given me here, my culinary "gilded turd" has succeeded in finding its way into the trash. Ahhhh, the feeling of liberation!

HOORAY !!!!

[jsolomon]

Leave it to Weird Al Yankovic to make something like Silly Choice Dinners.

It's a little old for the "gilded turd", but it's classic.

[Grub]

Steak au poivre



(Someone please tell me why it got tagged with this peculiar English-French label. Why not just Steak with Pepper, or peppersteak -- or (pardon my lack of French) Fillet Au Poivre, or Buef Au Poivre?) But uh, at any rate, I screwed this one up...

It's the simplest way you can make a good steak -- you don't need any uber super duper 50,000 BTU burning stoves to make a good steak.

1) Just crack some pepper corns, and pad them into the steaks, and pan-fry them in butter in a regular pan (NOT a non-stick) over medium/med-high heat, and let it rest in the oven on "warm" while you prep the sauce. With a regular pan (as opposed to nonstick), you'll get a few browned bits left that will provide great flavor for your sauce.

2) Put the steaks on a plate, covered with tinfoil, and leave them in the oven on "warm."

3) Whisk up the sticky bits in the pan with some beef stock, heavy cream (double cream) and some decent mustard, and let it reduce.

It makes for a fantastic steak. The sauce is amazing. You can use half beef stock and half cognac if you feel inclined and want to be really fancy -- and hey, this can be a fantastically fancy dish. I've done it several times before, and it was always great.

This time (when I finally got around to taking a picture of it), it looked bloody awful. I made two steaks, and ended up taking a picture of the plate with the least "steak-like shape" on it. Also, the asparagus look completely limp -- they weren't (I just left them on "warm" in the oven, and I guess the way I arranged them on the steak doesn't help much). But most of all, the sauce looks like it has the consistency of skimmed milk.

[snowangel]

I reported on my really yummy Bisteces Rancheros (from Braising with Molly) Here.

But, here is the photo:



OK. so the quality of the photo, and the sheen doesn't help. But, this looked like one mighty unappealing dish. Peter and a couple of this buddies (they are all 9) took one look at it and tried to decide whether it looked like worms on top, dead fish that had gone bad.

Most braised meat dishes just don't photo well. At least at my house.