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

[curlywurlyfi]

What's that green stuff, Fi?

That, my friends, is (are?) peas puréed with crème fraîche, nutmeg + mint. Utterly delicious, especially with ham, but oh dear god, they're vivid.

[hathor]

Fi, what no jello?? Surely, a good jello for desert.....!

(was that really ham??)

[Megan Blocker]

So...everything I've made recently has tasted really good, but hasn't photographed well. Which is odd, because both of these have photographed well before. Sigh.

First up, Susan in FL's Champagne vinegar chicken - fast becoming a favorite of mine. Usually very pretty. Not last night.

Then, tonight, grilled asparagus topped with balsamic and parmesan. BUT, I put the parmesan on first, then the balsamic. Tastes the same, looks like baby poop.

Sigh.

[Grub]

Megan, I hate being a uh, "reverse killjoy" here but while the asparagus look a little dodgy, I think the chicken looks nice... Maybe you've just got too high standards?

[Megan Blocker]

Megan, I hate being a uh, "reverse killjoy" here but while the asparagus look a little dodgy, I think the chicken looks nice... Maybe you've just got too high standards?

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Yeah, the asparagus is weird.

I think the chicken just suffers by comparison to earlier versions...it's usually so gorgeous, and the other night it just did not photograph well. Part of it is that I was just ready to EAT - work has been insane, and I'm sick of eating dinner at 9:30. I'm just slapping things down.

[Shalmanese]

Finally, I get to contribute in this thread again!

These are balsamic glazed green beans, you stir fry green beans until they are wilted and mottled brown, then toss in some garlic and balsamic and reduce until it forms a glaze. It's incredibly delicious but impossible to make look presentable. The sesame seeds were a vain attempt to put lipstick on a sow.

[Sugarella]

Finally, I get to contribute in this thread again!

(pic removed)

These are balsamic glazed green beans, you stir fry green beans until they are wilted and mottled brown, then toss in some garlic and balsamic and reduce until it forms a glaze. It's incredibly delicious but impossible to make look presentable. The sesame seeds were a vain attempt to put lipstick on a sow.

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I make these all the time.... the trick is to not cook them 'til they're wilted and mottled brown.

Yours still look good to me though.

[racheld]

The sesame seeds were a vain attempt to put lipstick on a sow.

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Phrases from my childhood, when we did indeed terrorize the farm animals with bubble wands and magic markers...tic tac toe on Mammaw's white cow comes to mind.

And the brown-sizzled beans are the ones I pick out first, all that caramelly goodness in the sesame and balsamic!!

[Grub]

Phrases from my childhood, when we did indeed terrorize the farm animals with bubble wands and magic markers...tic tac toe on Mammaw's white cow comes to mind.

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Hehehe nice!

My grandma kept chickens. They were all white. One day, my cousin decided that the black chickens he'd seen at a neighboring farm looked way cooler, so he decided to do something about it... Yeah, that's right -- he got his hands on a big brush and a great big bucket of black paint and set to work on the poor things. You can imagine the havoc... People came running, thinking a fox had gotten into the chicken coop, but at first they couldn't even understand what the hell was going on because it looked so surreal -- like some supernatural, cloudy tornado of black paint and hysterical chickens, plus one little boy covered from head to toe in paint and dirt...

They ate chicken for a couple weeks after that one.

[eJulia]

Grub, you are too funny for words.... I would love some black chicken!

I've had some VERY questionable meals recently.... not including painted fowl, but including other dining goodies that defied all things good and virtuous... and holy.

I'm so evil.

Save me!

[sabg]

i am still laughing at this...i must be a total pig

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."

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[hathor]

When I was 12 or so, and my Mom was working and left me to start dinner....I would deliberately not pierce one or two of the sausages so they would explode.

[racheld]

My grandma kept chickens. They were all white.

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Oh, Dear LORD!! I forgot about the frizzy chicken!!!

My Mammaw kept a chickenyard years after her property should have been zoned rural-animal-free---but she had a small neat enclosed space with a little house with its inclined plank up to the little window, and six or eight nice boxy nests up on a rack for the hens' laying-spot. I loved to go out and get the eggs, trying to steal them warm from the old grumps when I could, but preferring to catch them all outside so I could retrieve the eggs without injury to my forearms or face.

Every year or so, Mammaw and Mother would order a hundred little "poults" from a nursery, raise them for a few months, then I would be sent away for the day to play with cousins, whilst they did their business of getting the chickens into the freezer without my dismay and tears.

One batch of the little fellows had a very odd standout in the batch---a weirdly sculpted floofy guy whose feathers did not fit any semblance of chicken style. The poor creature looked as if it had been wired to a socket, or combed by a hairdresser on speed. Its plumage was a mass of swirls and swoops, wispy tendrils and curly locks, and the other chickens not only looked askance, they pecked it. They chased and harrassed it unmercifully, until I persuaded Mother to let me take it home with us, to live in the little fenced area out back by the garbage bins.

And so we did, and it grew, on a diet of mash and cracked corn and table scraps and the plentiful worms out in that fertile area. But it was SO UGLY, just dear to me because of my tender heart and the fact that I had no other pets.

Then Easter came, and every child in town seemed to get a little cheeping dyed chicken in an Easter basket. I did not, and being the resourceful only child that I was, decided to make my own. The drugstore had a bin of sale items, in which were several of those after-Easter packs of fizzy dye tablets, marked down to maybe a dime for the pack. I bought one, smuggled it home, and when Mother was away at Missionary Society or Garden Club or some ladies' do, I got out the garden bucket, the pack of dye, and mixed away. I knew enough cooking chemistry at that early age to know that dilution would lessen the effect, so I made sure that there was at least a fizz per cup, and also knew color mixes, in that red and orange and yellow would match up without making brown or black. So I put all three in the three cups of water in the bottom of the bucket, poured in a good glug of vinegar, and it bubbled away.

When the action subsided, I picked up BiddyChick, stood her in the bucket, and laved her feathers with hand-scoops of the liquid. I discovered that it's really hard to make a chicken squat, especially in a bucket.

The actual feathers withstood the process, staying their customary ecru/white, but the frizzy, fluffy ends and tendrils picked up the shocking-orange dye, hanging in forlorn stained drips all own her sides and neck. The color ran in rivulets all down and over the poor thing, mottling her already-unfortunate appearance into a garish blobby wreck of oranges and peach and tanny pinks. She looked even worse wet than dry.

Until she dried. Then all the fluff and whirl regained its springy bounce, and she took off across the yard like a lurching psychedelic dandelion on legs (also bright orange, except for the horridly-brown toenails, I remember).

She was a smart chicken, one who DID have the sense to get in out of the rain. Had she gotten wet a time or two, the effect might have faded sooner, but she spent the Summer as a local celebrity, the Chicken from Mars, and I think I could have sold tickets.

And the color also faded from my hands and arms in several days, but totally negated ANY pretense of innocence in the wretched affair. She lived for YEARS, and I still fancied I could see tinges of orange when the sun was just right.

ed:syntax and to add that fifteen minutes of flap and squawk pretty much dyes the dyer, as well.

Edited May 23, 2006 by racheld (log)

[Smithy]

Oh, racheld, thank you, thank you for my gulley-laugh of the week!

<wipes tears from eyes, opens the office door again>

[purplewiz]

Thank you....I needed that laugh ! The poor chickens....

Marcia.

who still thinks the dyed/painted chickens probably looked better than some of the chicken dishes she's created over the years

[Grub]

Excellent story, Racheld!

This is such a classy dish: Broiled salmon with a wonderfully crispy dill crust, lime-Hollandaise sauce, beans and creamed potatoes with chives -- and of course, a hair... The only saving grace is, this was my plate... Gah.

The one thing I cook the most is definitely salmon. I particularly like it broiled. This recipe is from "The NEW Best Recipes"-book from America's Test Kitchen (which is an excellent book, by the way). They do recipes over and over again, in order to really understand the mechanics, or chemistry behind it all. This one broils the fillet with just salt, pepper and olive oil, but just before it is done, you remove it from the oven, smear it with dijon mustard and cover it with a crust made from freshly toasted breadcrumbs, plain potato chips and dill. Return to the lowest rack in the oven for a minute, and that's it. It created a wonderful crust.

Unfortunately, I had made no plans for sides, and ended up making these rather gluey "mashed"/"creamed" potatoes with chives. They're popular, although I personally prefer my mashers fluffy and airy. However, they're easy to make -- especially if you're already gotten the immersion blender dirty (for the Hollandaise sauce). The beans came out of a can, and microwaved -- they were about as mushy as they look.

[fou de Bassan]

Oh Grub I love that salmon recipe! The first time I saw it I thought, potato chips???, but went ahead and it has become a family favorite!

I made some rather stunning baba ghanoush that belongs here. It looked like Gack. Tasty though.

[eJulia]

This is such a classy dish: Broiled salmon with a wonderfully crispy dill crust, lime-Hollandaise sauce, beans and creamed potatoes with chives -- and of course, a hair... The only saving grace is, this was my plate... Gah.

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When I first looked at his photo, I wondered why was it posted here - until the hair!!!!

I think I injured myself cracking up.... this was definitely my best laugh all day! Thanks!

[Chufi]

Did you have guests? I always wonder why it is that whenever I find a hair, it's always on my plate, and it's always when I have guests.

What does that mean.. that on those occasasions, there are hairs everywhere, but the guests are too polite to tell?

That there are hairs in my food also when it's just me and my husband, but I don't notice them? Maybe I don't look at my plate closely when we don't have company? How many hairs has my husband eaten over the years?

Why ??

I guess now none of you will ever want to come to dinner at my house

[mizducky]

Okay, I have another entry in what could become a series: Unsightly Eggplant Dishes We Have Known and Eaten. Observe:

Now, this actually tasted pretty nice (except I was way too caution with the salted black beans). But I know certain people will look at this and immediately think: "sewage".

Edited May 25, 2006 by mizducky (log)

[curlywurlyfi]

ah, mizducky, you are surely a woman after my own heart (on the aubergine horror front, at least)

[saskanuck]

Oh, Lord, you guys have me laughing so hard with the chicken stories and the eggplant abominations.

I tried to make baba ghanoush a long time ago, and that stuff looked like shit on a plate. It didn't taste much better either, so I don't know what the hell I did to it.

Speaking of chickens, we used to have a mean old rooster when I was a kid who would chase you down and peck at your feet. One day my older brother got mad at it and swung a heavy shovel at its head. Kilt it right dead. I don't know if my mom made soup with it or what, but was she ever mad at my brother.

[Meez]

-- and of course, a hair...

Dude, that is just too funny. Such a great pic: it looks like the filet bled out speckled pus. And the green beans seem kind of angry.

[Grub]

Dude, that is just too funny. Such a great pic: it looks like the filet bled out speckled pus. And the green beans seem kind of angry.

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Oh yeah, the cayenne pepper... The traditional supermarket spices like McCormick, Spice Hunter and Spice Island brands are just horrific ripoffs so I always try to stick with spices from an Indian store if at all possible -- far cheaper and almost always better quality. But the cayenne pepper I used for the sauce was really coarse, like chilli powder or something. I didn't notice it at all. Gonna have to grind that stuff up next time around.

Sad thing is, I made a cheese sauce recently and the sauce didn't just break -- it burned the hell out of a beloved All-Clad saucier -- and I was WAY too freaked out by it, to remember to take a picture of it. I think it's completely unfair to idolize people like Escoffier so much because he didn't have the difficulties to deal with that I struggle with on a daily basis -- like the Internet and oh, look at that funny video of a monkey teasing a tiger, hahah, I wanna watch that againwhatsthatsmell?!

[Grub]

Charcoal grilled, but the salmon acted just weird. The icky, white "You've overcooked the salmon, ya dunce"-goo started oozing out really early -- I figured I got the grill a lot hotter than normal, since it seemed to be done so early. But when I cut it up, it was completely underdone. So had to do that walk of shame back out to the grill with a half-cooked fillet... I finally managed to cook it properly, but it looks completely overdone -- both because of the excessive flaking and the nasty goo. Extra bonus: no grill-marks whatsoever. The rosemary and dill also just about dissapeared.

The taters didn't get that nice roasted look. The only thing that looked okay were the asparagus -- so of course, I covered that up with a completely bland bechamel sauce; duh.