Dinner II: The Gallery of Regrettable Foods (Part 1)

[Pan]

A couple days ago I really messed up a pineapple upside down cake. I came to eGullet and did a search to see if there was a thread on the secrects of the perfect upside down cake only to discover the main thread was on started by me the last time I had an upside down disaster.....

I also rediscovered this picture

The grid like thing on top of the cake is from pattern on the cake pan, as you will see my cranberries ended up on the bottom when they are supposed to be up top.

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That really doesn't look bad to me. Not neat and fancy, but I'm sure it tasted good.

[H. du Bois]

This thread cracks me up.

[snowangel]

I made some chicken/basil/tomato sausages. They are very yummy, but when one bursts on the grill...

Diana was reminded of the movie "Temors."

[chardan]

I made some chicken/basil/tomato sausages.  They are very yummy, but when one bursts on the grill...

Hm. Well, I can say that's the most tasty-looking example of... well... a perforated intestine that I've seen lately. heheh. (I'm also happy to see that I'm not the only one this has ever happened to... I know, I know, prick the casings with a fork and all. But, who's got time for that? Yeesh!)

Diana was reminded of the movie "Temors."

Tremors... good suggestion. It's been a few years, and I do love bad movies... heheh.

racheld: If you truly insist on subjecting yourself to further horrors, try "http://jesseandmaia.smugmug.com" for further embarassments. (Yes, fine, laugh

at my expense as I attempt to learn to cook. <sniff>) :-)

_Jesse Williamson ;-};

[Grub]

The Burger from Hell:

This picture doesn't do justice to the beast -- except for the size itself. The thing nearly covers a freakin' dinner-plate. This just got way out of control. I started out by grinding about 1 lb of chuck, along with some bacon (for a "squealer") and onions. Initially, I shaped this into three reasonably sized burgers, in spite of the fact that I was cooking for two -- but then I changed my mind and said, "to hell with it" and made two big, half pound patties instead. I realized I'd never be able to finish that, so I finally reshaped them into one normal sized thing, and one really big one. This is the big one.

Then, since I was baking my own buns, I decided against doing them on the grill -- I'd just sauteed them in a pan. Bad mistake. They were greasy and nasty. I can't believe how big a difference it makes.

A burger (or a steak for that matter) always benefits from some nice, caramelized onions -- yellow onions, that is. I only had red ones -- not the same stuff at ALL. Emeril sez you shouldn't just use red onions for salads; you can cook with 'em -- that may be, but for this purpose it doesn't work at all.

Then, the buns... I bake so rarely, I've just never gotten into a "groove" with it. It's like a big mystery every time. Can't get the dough to rise when I want it to, so it ends up being far too dense. In this case, it started rising like mad during baking, in spite of me patting them down really, really flat. In fact, I ended up cutting out a big piece from the middle of the bun:

Even so, between the greasy burger and the dense bread, I don't think I wanna see any more red meat for a couple of weeks. Oh, and I like cheese on my burger, but forgot it -- that's at least one mistake I'm grateful for. Ough.

[saskanuck]

Grub, I caramelized red onions like that once, and they looked exactly like the ones on your burger.

I also ended up making green scrambled eggs a while back, but I wasn't trying to imitate Dr. Seuss, nor was it St. Pat's day. Now I know not to scramble eggs in a cast iron pan. I don't think it was seasoned enough or something. My kids wouldn't eat the eggs and while I was running to get the camera, my older son threw them out into the garbage.

I love this thread; it's so good for a laugh.

[Grub]

Well, I'm on a roll...

Salad Niçoise -- I was so looking forward to this one. Even managed to figure out how to pronounce it (Ne-swaz -- man, English is messed up, with pronounciations that bear little correlation to letters and syllables, but other Germanic languages aren't that crazy... Is it the French influence on English? Is this where the madness came from? Hm)

This is a really nice salad (unless you serve it to people who don't like olives and anchovies, duh). String beans and tiny new potatoes boiled and chilled. Hardboiled eggs, tomatoes, olives, a can of salmon (ugh, I'm not freaking using any more canned salmon -- those things are nasty, and have bones and skin in them, wtf is that stuff about?), a special(?) Niçoise dressing of white wine vinegar, olive oil, a touch of honey, salt, pepper, and some fresh terragon. Plate over lettuce leaves and sprinkle with terragon and anchovies.

It sounded so nice. And it ended up looking like THIS:

It looks like something a bear might puke up after raiding a dumpster.

It didn't taste bad, but it just didn't "work" for me.

[sazji]

Knee-swozz... actually the problem in appearance seems to be the canned salmon that broke down all through the salad; I bet if you grilled a filet and put it in right at the very end, it would be beautiful. Hardboiled eggs are very hazardous in that respect too; I've made lots of ugly things with hardboiled eggs — a particularly vile spinach salad comes to mind... I looked it up on the net and found a couple of really beautiful presentations, and a couple bear puke versions as well! (Why am I feeling queasy just now...)

As for English - though things are a bit more complicated (great vowel shifts, no formal orthography till about 300 years ago), I think it's fair to blame the French for much of the bizarreness of English. Heck, Niçoise not withstanding, it's a small price to pay for croissants and creme brulee, non?

Edited April 26, 2006 by sazji (log)

[eJulia]

Grub:

I think nicoise salads are just hard to photgraph.... this attempt looked okay in real life, and I "proudly" posted in on the "Composed Salad" thread, but in hindsight, probably should have posted it here...

Why is it that we all know what bear barf looks like?

Julia

[memesuze]

Now I know not to scramble eggs in a cast iron pan.  I don't think it was seasoned enough or something.

It's got to be the seasoning - my go-to skillet for my scrambled eggs is a well-seasoned cast iron skillet - and I've never had anything resembling green eggs.

[torakris]

Believe it or not I don't think this is out of focus....

It just goes to show some foods don't photograph well, but all us here on this thread already knew that. didn't we?

It was a cold pork salad with a tofu dressing and mitsuba (trefoil) seasoned with yuzu koshou (yuzu and chile seasoning), it actually sounds more appetizing with a Japanese name.....

[racheld]

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Now, see, I find this salad pretty and infinitely DIVE-able. You even put the anchovies all over to one side so I wouldn't have to touch 'em.

And Kris, though I hold you and your cooking in high esteem, I'd have to wear my Wellies to even WADE in that one.

Edited April 28, 2006 by racheld (log)

[saskanuck]

The composed salad looks fine, the others, not so much.

Hmm, I'll have to try scrambling eggs in one of our other cast-iron pans again. They were a set I got from my mom that were so badly neglected that we had to baptize them by fire to get them usable again. It takes a long time to get the seasoning right on them, even after doing the oil and oven trick.

I ate some canned lentil soup for lunch today here at work that would have fit perfectly here. Unfortunately I don't have a camera or a cellphone with a camera. It looked pretty gross and didn't taste all that great either.

[Kouign Aman]

The Burger from Hell:

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That burger looks like a praying mantis head, scaled up for a '50s horror flick. Oh my. The Kid's Plate Special, anyone?

[snowangel]

It sure tasted better than it looked:

The first time I've ever roasted a chicken where the skin didn't turn out brown and crispy. Same method as I've always used (Marcella's method). A ramp and potato gratin that separated and anything that wasn't potato or ramp separated and got glumpy. There was all sorts of clear liquid and a bunch of curds. And, the ramps were very purple, which did not provide for good color. The salad was simply OK. A dressing I've made a million times before just didn't have it.

[eJulia]

I was looking for pics of something else when I found this:

I don't even know what it was SUPPOSED to be!!!

Then I posted this on another thread about a pan I'd used...

What the hell is that orange thing trying to sneak up on my pan????

[monavano]

I was looking for pics of something else when I found this:

I don't even know what it was SUPPOSED to be!!! 

Then I posted this on another thread about a pan I'd used...

What the hell is that orange thing trying to sneak up on my pan???? 

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Brains with muchrooms?

[TongoRad]

...

Brains with muchrooms?  

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"Brain, brain! What is brain?!!"

Actually I think I see some tentacles at 2:00 as well- maybe it's something that would've eaten Pittsburgh if given a chance. Looks like eJulia did us all a service there by cooking it

[prasantrin]

Actually I think I see some tentacles at 2:00 as well- maybe it's something that would've eaten Pittsburgh if given a chance.  Looks like eJulia did us all a service there by cooking it

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I thought it was shriveled up chicken skin. Nothing is worse than seeing those little goose bumps on boiled/poached/braised chicken skin. All the more reason to fry everything!!!

[Grub]

Salmon with a parm, orange and ginger crust, sauteed asparagus with prosciutto, and creamed carlic potatoes with chives:

The prosciutto looks real iffy -- but the salmon, man, salmon's not supposed to look like that...

This wasn't a planned meal, but mostly knocked together with left-over ingredients from a meal I never got around to making. Still, it sounded really good, in theory...

The creamed taters are just mashed, but done with an Evinruude. They become very glutinous, which isn't to everyone's tastes, but taste good.

The asparagus was just sauteed, and then I followed that up with a failed attempt at wrapping them in prosciutto -- I realized the salmon might be getting overcooked, and prosciutto is about as user-friendly as phyllo dough when you're in a hurry. Wut a mess. The color of the prosciutto doesn't look good at all. But it tasted fine. Can't miss with pork products.

The salmon, oh boy... I cook salmon fillet in the oven all the time: touch of salt and pepper, and some olive oil, bake at 450 for 10 minutes and hit it with the broiler at full heat for a few minutes to get a nice, darkened crust (if the fillet is thin, you can just go with the broiler all the way through). I've thought about grating some parm cheese on top for the longest time, but this was the first time I tried it. It didn't work out very well -- it seems the oil and the parm just created a big gooey, liquidy mess from the baking. By the time I caught it, and turned on the full-heat broiler, it was too late. I completely overcooked the salmon, and still only got a little bit of brownage. Ick. Ugh. Tasted fairly good, but looked like crap.

But I did learn something -- if I'm going to create a parm crust on the salmon, I'd better hit the broiler halfway through the cooking process -- and possibly, use only a little, or no olive oil.

[eJulia]

Salmon with a parm, orange and ginger crust, sauteed asparagus with prosciutto, and creamed carlic potatoes with chives:

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Hey, Grub, that "carlic" can be tricky stuff to cook with... maybe leave it out next time...

Julia (I know, what an a$$hole!)

[_john]

I think I found a piece of bone in my sausage

HORROR

a very over ripe durian

[Pookie]

HORROR

OH MY GOD! I think that is probably the worst thing in the thread! Pink Margarine! PINK!!! MARGARINE!!!!

Gah.

[torakris]

HORROR

OH MY GOD! I think that is probably the worst thing in the thread! Pink Margarine! PINK!!! MARGARINE!!!!

Gah.

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why? why? oh God why?

[Abra]

I always forget to look at this thread, but I'm sure glad I did tonight. My gag reflex needed the workout! Kris, I have thought before that you should get a prize for the best regrettable food shots, but now I'm thinking that Grub is giving you a lot of competition.

But just so you won't think I'm a total jerk, I offer you a bite of

a Sog of Pears, Stilton, and Pine Nuts. Supposed to have been a tart, ended up being a sog. And that's putting it politely.