Genius Idea or Absolute Disaster
Have you ever had one of those moments in the kitchen where you try something new or do something out of the ordinary and think, "This is either going to be a genius idea or an absolute disaster?"
Earlier tonight I was craving potato salad and decided it would be an excellent idea to use all of my leftover homemade tzatziki sauce with a bit of mayo for the base of some potato salad. I was very afraid before I took my first bite, but it turned out ridiculously declicious. I don't know why I decided to combine the two, but I'm glad I did.
These kind of culinary innovations can also go very, very badly; like when I tried mixing pasta with leftover nacho cheese. Or like the time I tried to use bologna as a pizza topping. Or that one time I decided to use breakfast sausage- as opposed to Italian sausage- in a meat sauce for lasagna. Need I go on?
So what about you, fellow Serious Eaters? Ever come up with something in your kitchen that seemed kind of weird, but ended up totally delicious ... or gross?
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24 Comments:
I'm awaiting questionable meringues in the oven right now. I didn't have the heart to start over as I had mixed and mixed (and probably over-mixed) the whites and sugar.
My open mindedness extends to eggs. I throw in whatever I can find that will cook up in the skillet with the eggs, then put the final product in the oven with cheese (whichever kind i've got in the fridge) and finish it off.
And, i'll throw practically anything on the grill!
mcanna at 2:29AM on 04/30/09
Garam masala added to Trader Joe's spaghetti sauce. Sounds frightful, but it's a family favorite.
gentlyferal at 3:04AM on 04/30/09
This subject line could be the title of my autobiography! I may steal it :p
I'm very health-conscious, so most of my disasters involve things like trying to make pudding with water, or eliminating fats. However, using avocado without the traditional sour cream in recipes that call for it, or even subbing avocado instead of mayo as a spread has worked well--actually, I like avocado with sea salt and a twist of lime.
Using crumbled muffins as yogurt toppings has been my main feat of genius latetly :p But we won't talk about the sugar free pumpkin pie, okay?
I figure as long as I am the only person who has to eat the stuff I cook, I can be as crazy as I want--when I make stuff for others, I am all about following the rules.
HeartofGlass at 5:47AM on 04/30/09
I can only think of disasters and it seems always having to do with me baking something and not having a ingredient and I try to use something else and it was a disastor all because I would not get off my lazy bbutt and go to the store and get what I needed. The victim is usually cakes lol.
pjracz10 at 8:08AM on 04/30/09
Using leftover sour cream in place of mayo in chicken salad was remarkably tasty, a nice tang to it.
annabanannas at 8:52AM on 04/30/09
Using a boxed brownie mix in my Italian pizzelle cookie iron (brownie pizzelles, sounds kinda good doesn't it?). The batter turned to concrete in all of the ridges and was impossible to get out. I bought a new one and will stay with my grandmother's recipes for pizzelles.
kathyvegas at 10:01AM on 04/30/09
You know what you can't use as a substitute for vegetable oil in brownie mix? Olive oil. Lesson learned!
AnaPowell at 11:41AM on 04/30/09
I think it's awesome that you experiment so much. That's how we come up with what tastes good to begin with! One time I made a pumpkin pie and decided to frost it with dark chocolate frosting...it turned out delicious!
Hillary
Chew on That
Chew on That at 11:45AM on 04/30/09
this reminds me of one of my best friends. when we were younger, we would always have sleepovers and create crazy food combinations. fried rice with pepperoni (delicious!) english muffin pizzas with whatever we could find. often, it was amazingly good. except rice and mayonnaise. i will never like or understand that one. *shudders*
listener at 12:22PM on 04/30/09
I had a genius idea last night. When I got home from work, it was later than usual and I didn't feel like starting a charcoal fire to grill the chicken legs I had thawed. I threw the legs into a roasting pan with a couple of lemon slices and started them roasting in the oven. Once I got the legs going, I started looking around for what else to have. New potatoes! I cut them in half, tossed them with a little oil, rosemary, and more lemon and tossed them into the pan with the partially cooked chicken. So far, so good. But I need vegetables. After some scrounging, I came up with frozen artichoke hearts. I tossed those with some oil and dropped them into the pan. (It's a very large, flat bottomed pan.) When everything was just about finished, I added some minced garlic and a little more lemon juice.
Serendipitous, delicious, and quick!
Knitter at 12:29PM on 04/30/09
I've had probably more disasters than fortunate accidents, but it's worth the missteps for some success. Not to badmouth my own mom, but she got a recipe (can't believe this was an actual published recipe) from my aunt one time for "Swedish Meatballs" - the sauce being made from a combination of ketchup and grape jelly. Horrid. Horrid.
yayfood at 1:11PM on 04/30/09
I thought AB's crepe quiches were genuis ... and they failed miserably for me. No idea why.
Probably the last kind of random thing I did that turned out really well was a several part thing. I decided to do a pork roast for tacos, and wanting to keep it simple, I just threw in two cans of rotel, a chipotle or two and some of the adobo sauce, some random spices, stirred and let it go in the crock pot. It turned out delicious. Not wanting just meat for the tacos, all I could find was sour cream and mango, and the spicy from the meat went really well with the cool of the sour cream and the sweet of the mango.
Then later I wanted a snack, so I stirred some sour cream into the shredded spicy pork and used it as a dip for chips. Turned out pretty good.
joyyy at 1:16PM on 04/30/09
Lavender salt in chocolate brownies, garam masala in barbecue sauce, and leftover tarragon cream sauce in white bean enchiladas. Nothing too crazy.
jm chen at 3:05PM on 04/30/09
@ Chew on That- a few years ago my sister made a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving and forgot to add the sugar. I don't think she realized it until someone (might have been her) had the first bite. No one else could eat it except our diabetic cousin- she was thrilled to have a dessert she could actually eat and said it tasted fine without the sugar! One person's failure is another's triumph!
AuntJone at 3:16PM on 04/30/09
Okay, I just read this weird blog entry and I have to share it.
Frankly, a mac & cheese wtf experiment with possibly-blasphemous extra ingredients. The photo looks awesome though:
http://thebittenword.typepad.com/thebittenword/2009/04/carrot-macaroni-and-cheese.html
conky at 3:44PM on 04/30/09
I had a ton of leftover hummus and decided to use that in a meatloaf, SO tried it and made me write down the recipe so he could have it the same way again, it kept the loaf very moist yet didnt weigh it down or make it fatty.
huneybumper at 4:34PM on 04/30/09
@AnaPowell, really? I feel like that's the only kind of oil I ever have on hand. I can't recall ever having a problem with it.
My own story -- I once went to make some tuna salad and discovered that I had no mayonnaise, so I used some leftover onion dip. It was FANTASTIC! A little dryer than I like my tuna, but so flavorful.
kfarrel3 at 7:52PM on 04/30/09
I recently tried to make zucchini bread pancakes, which made sense in my brain, but didn't translate well to the plate. I still ate them : \
caroliiine at 8:18PM on 04/30/09
I added a bit of cinnamon instead of red pepper to my Sunday gravy once. It came out AWESOME...a sort of sweet and smokey spiciness. It's a staple in the sauce now.
Olive oil in cookies, not good.
Bought canned pumpkin instead of pumpkin pie mix. Yeuch.
Oh! I forgot to buy ice cream to go along with the pannetone at Christmas. So, I had a container of low fat ricotta...mixed in some sugar, scooped it out and topped with berries and a honey drizzle. OH YES. One of my favorites still!!
sweethunibabi at 8:23PM on 04/30/09
I make a lot of bread, so much so that I could probably do it in my sleep. And so sometimes I'm making while thinking of other things, and I start throwing things into the dough. Like whatever happens to be left over in the fridge. One time it was leftover mashed potatoes. Brilliant!
Another time I thought that since mashed potatoes worked so well, that cooked mashed winter squash would work just as well. And, yes, it does. The color is interesting, but it doesn't taste particularly squashy. It's one of those things where you know there's something different going on, but you just can't tell what it is.
One day I decided that I should throw peanut butter into my bread dough. A lot of peanut butter. It was really good.
Another brilliant move was making ice cream with buttermilk. It tasted like frozen cheesecake.
I recall a horrible episode where I grabbed the wrong spice for something. Honestly, I can't recall what I was making or what the right or wrong spices were. All I know was that no matter what else I threw into the pot, it wasn't getting any better.
dbcurrie at 8:40PM on 04/30/09
I'm with kfarrel with the olive oil in baked goods. That's usually what I have on hand and I've never noticed a real difference between using that and using vegetable oil.
Please note: the swedish meatball recipe I mentioned earlier was really an anomaly! My mother is a phenomenal cook! Her beef stew, meatloaf, eggplant parmesan and popovers all belong in Gourmet Magazine. I've never once seen her open a cookbook. She just creates and it's all genius. That swedish meatball recipe came from an outside source!
yayfood at 10:05AM on 05/01/09
Feeling frisky, I added a bunch of cardamom to a honey cake instead of all the normal spices. Amaaaaaazing.
Stufsocker at 2:30PM on 05/01/09
I put cookie dough in a pan once and seared it. turned out fantastic---crispy on the outside and ooey gooey and raw on the inside.
jrmanor at 7:22PM on 05/01/09
Really? Your breakfast sausage lasagna turned out terrible? I used the turkey breakfast sausage (in the tubes) in pasta sauce and loved it. Something about the sage and tomato and garlic that combined well. :)
And well, I have put just about anything/everything on a tortilla and somehow the tortilla always makes it great.
Mhlia at 5:10PM on 05/04/09