Story Time: Recipes that Didn't Go So Well

There are some recipes that take some serious talent to screw up. Those pancakes that I always rave about - that's one of them. But there are other recipes.... Well, we all know those recipes. You find the recipe on Pinterest or in a magazine and it just looks so good, but it never seems to turn out that way. It's the kind of recipes they give to culinary students as a final exam before they're allowed to graduate. I'm gonna talk about two of those recipes and how badly I botched them up.

The first recipe came around Christmas time. To preface, I adore eggnog! It was a family tradition of ours to take the richest, fattest eggnog we could find at the store, and mix it with diet Seven Up, because who can afford the calories of mixing it with actual Seven Up?! Now if you've ever seen one of those Mentos and Diet Coke videos on YouTube (if you haven't I HIGHLY recommend you look some up) you'll understand me when I say this concoction  fizzled and bubbled like crazy. You almost had to pour the Seven Up drop by drop just to prevent your drink from ending up on the floor. Well, it was my first Christmas on the SCD, and I was to have dinner with another SCD couple I knew and frequently dined with, the Thornocks. In fact, to side track a little, Chase Thornock is the one who first introduced me to the diet and I have him and his amazing wife to thank for the amazing results and blessings I've received recently.

Back on track... We decided that, seeing it was Christmas time, we were gonna both make Christmasy(?) ... Christmassy(?)... Christmasey(?) (roll with it.) food. Well, I was seriously in the mood for some eggnog that day. So, being the adventurous man that I am, I decided to face this recipe head on and make the most kick butt eggnog!

But, if you read the title of the post, you'll know that it just failed. And by failed I don't mean that it was a bad recipe and just tasted like dirt. No, I mean really failed. The egg curdled into this thick slime monster of a drink that you'd have to use a spoon to eat. Like you'd want to eat it anyway because it tasted like dirt that a chicken laid an egg in. It was just abhorred. And it was a real shame too, because for a while there I thought I was set. It was looking good, it smelt good, and all the pieces were just falling into place. Then I blinked, and everything just crashed. It literally went from heaven-sent to tapioca pudding in a matter of seconds. So, I cried a little on the inside and vowed to leave eggnog to the professionals.

The second story has a little different feel to it, but a completely opposite outcome.

My mom is a phenomenal cook. In fact, she teaches foods at the local high school. You'd think that being her son, I'd naturally inherit her talents and abilities. Normally that'd be the case, but seeing that I'm adopted, I got jack squat from her in that department. This story deals with a recipe of hers that she just makes with ease while the rest of us mortals just suffer trying to make something even remotely close. That recipe is Hollandaise Sauce.

Gasp! The horror! Just those two words instill fear into the hearts of amateur cooks everywhere trying to make a decent sauce for their holiday traditions. Yes, I was one of those amateur cooks who thought they could make THE Hollandaise Sauce.  And as this blog post intails, my first few attempts were just tragic.

I actually wanna recall the story of a few weeks before I went onto the SCD. I remember, a few years earlier, my mom made this heart melting meal I'd never had before: Eggs Benedict. Oh was I addicted to Hollandaise Sauce from that first bite. And of course, my mom being the professional she is, passed off the recipe as though it was just another meal. But it wasn't. It was far more than just another dinner. It was something that would change the way I looked at food, an entire paradigm shift of the sheer brilliance of what a few simple ingredients could produce.

So, fast forwarding a little, I decide to bust out this recipe for my roommate and I, not knowing what exactly went into making this sauce. And also keep in mind, cooking for me at this point was busting open a box of Mac and Cheese and knowing how much milk and butter I needed to mix in to get the cheese sauce to come out right. Like you could screw that up! Let's just say I made a few mistakes on that first attempt.

Mistake #1: I didn't have a double boiler. Heck, I didn't even know what a double boiler was! So what I did was fill up the largest pot I could find with water, and floated a glass Pyrex bowl about 1/3 the size on top. Mistake #2: You want to cook Hollandaise Sauce using water that's just about to or is just barely beginning to simmer, to keep your sauce from cooking too quickly. MY water, was violently boiling. Mistake #3, I didn't fully understand what they meant by stir constantly. I was so casual about this sauce. I would stir, then go talk to my roommate, then add in the next tablespoon of butter, then go watch a YouTube video. Needless to say, it curdled like it was nobody's business. And I panicked! I didn't even know that was an option for the sauce. I just thought that it went from creamy to more creamy. I didn't know it could go from creamy to 5 month old chunky milk. And just like the eggnog, I literally blinked and it curdled. Mistake #4: Saving the sauce for me was adding in all the rest of the butter at once and taking it off the heat immediately. Mistake #5: going along with Mistake #1, I had a floating glass Pyrex bowl as a double boiler. When I tried to grab it with my hand, I about permanently scorched off my fingerprints. So I tried to use an oven mitt. That didn't work out either seeing that in order to grab the bowl, the oven mitt would have to be submerged in boiling hot water, along with my hand. So in trying to finagle my two options, I managed to dip the edge of the Pyrex bowl into the water, leaving me with a heavily watered down sauce of melted butter and egg curdles. And bless my roommate's heart, he and I ate still made Eggs Benedict, and despite all my mistakes, the meal didn't taste half bad (but let's be honest, anything with bacon tastes good, so I can't say much about my cooking.)

Now I share this story second because, as you may or may not be aware, Hollandaise Sauce is one of the recipes on my blog. In fact, it was featured on a very famous SCD blog, scdlifestyle.com, and now sits at over 250 page views, putting it at the most visited recipe on my blog. To think, I completely botched that recipe the first time I made it. In fact, the second time went about the same as the first, but I had an actual double boiler instead of a ghetto Pyrex bowl, and instead of water, I had paint chips mixed in from the boiler. Oops! But that's not the point. The point is that I got up and I did it again, and again, and again, until I had something that was worthy to be called Hollandaise Sauce. In fact, I was at a dinner about 6 months ago, and my asparagus Hollandaise Sauce combo was the biggest hit of all the dishes there. It's because I let go of my inhibition. I threw away my comfort zone and tried something new. And when I failed, I brushed myself off and tried it again. Now, I have something to show for it: a good recipe, a great sauce to add on those disgusting eggs om mine, and a stronger will to never give up.

Questions? Thoughts? Personal fail stories? Leave it in the comments below!

Story Time: My First Day of Self Caused Delirium (Or SCD, for short)

I've survived one year on the SCD! Woot! Let me tell you, it has not been easy. In fact, I just had my one year scoping from hell (colonoscopy, for those of you who've never had one) and good news: 10x better than it was last year!! SUCCESS! It's still not perfect, but the doctors were able to get the scope into my small intestines, a feat they've yet to accomplish in the  4 other colonoscopies I've had in my lifetime (just for the record, I'm 24. I don't wanna hear any excuses from you 50 year olds about how much you don't want to get a colonoscopy. Suck it up.) So to celebrate, I wanna share a story of my entrance onto the SCD.

Let's start with the fun part shall we. I have a good friend, Preston Powell. He makes the most killer cake: better than BETTER THAN sex cake. That's right, folks, two better thans in one title. And it's appropriately named, too. Just think for a second, the recipe calls for an entire stick of butter, just for the sauce that you put on the cake. It's so rich, it comes with a surgeon general's warning saying eating this cake will increase the risk of heart attack and could potentially lead to death by the age of 27. Words cannot describe this chocolaty masterpiece.

So why begin a story of the first day on the SCD with a description of cake? (Mind you, a cake where virtually every ingredient is illegal.) Because if I was gonna deprive myself of all things holy, I was gonna go out with a bang. And that I did.

Two days before embarking on the SCD, I threw myself a party. And not just any ol' get together, but a feast! The entry to my party was one sugary, floury, or starchy food item. And the cake, this better than BETTER THAN sex cake, was to be the crown jewel of the evening. Standing at 8" and 1500 calories, this cake had the potential to kill an elephant. But I didn't care; I ate, I drank, and I played games until I was ready to vomit. You know why? Because in two days, I was gonna die.

Sunday came. Last day of freedom. I felt like I needed to hook myself up to an IV of wheatgrass in hopes of detoxing from all the sugar the night before. Instead, I just heated up some pizza, finished off the remaining few pieces of cake, and tried to ignore my throbbing head.

Monday. July 2nd, 2012. Day 1 of the SCD. I, of course, had done my homework on the SCD. I was an expert! A friend of mine had loaned me some SCD cookbooks; another friend helped me find websites to get me on the right path. There was no way I was gonna fail!

Oh, I failed so hard that first day. I still remember opening my fridge that morning. My mom and I were planning on going shopping that night for food, so up until then, all I had was... well, actually, I didn't have anything. In fact, included in the feast was a gift bag for everyone who came. Inside the gift bag was every single ounce of food I had to my name. I was left with nothing, bone dry of anything that could be considered substance. All I had were eggs. Gross. Nasty. Eggs.

I'm not sure why I hated eggs so much. They just always came off as bland and tasteless. Nothing I added seemed to make them any better. So when I reached into my fridge that first morning and all I had were eggs, I put on my big girl panties and made myself some food. Eggs for breakfast. Eggs for lunch. Eggs for dinner. Now, I was no connoisseur of eggs. I barely even knew how to scramble them, let alone hard boil them. But I did it. I made myself hard boiled eggs. And let me tell you, I was ready to vomit by about the 10th egg I shoved down my throat.

To this day, I still gag over hard boiled eggs. By far, the worst chain of meals I've ever had. But I learned something that day: life is hard, but it's never impossible. I survived that first day, and every passing day teaches me something new about how to take this Self Caused Delirium of mine and turn it into a Successfully Cured Disease.

Story Time: Bessy, the Beastly College Apartment Oven

Meet Bessy. Bessy is a college apartment oven. Bessy is a ... how do I say this correctly ... a "sweet spirit?" Bessy and I have never quite gotten along, and before I ever began this insanity of a diet, Bessy and I were mere acquaintances. I would use her to make macaroni and cheese and the occasional grilled chicken and apart from that, she would simply be there to hold the salt and pepper (though, somehow the salt still ends up missing.)  But the more I used good ol' Bessy, the more I realized that she desperately needed to be hauled off to a retirement home and left to rust.  Thus prefaces the story of how Bessy ruined my birthday.

This all started when I began the SCD (Specific Carbohydrate Diet, for short). I was limited to surviving off of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and meat. And by surviving, I mean starving. That first month about put me in a morgue it was so awful. But I had reliable Bessy to help get me through those hard times. She was a wiz at the omelets; a miracle worker with the sauces; and for any of you who've had my banana pancakes, you'll know she's a true goddess. Food slowly transformed into delicacies as I experimented with oregano, paprika, and about every other spice Sprouts had on their shelf.

"Wait AJ, I thought you said that Bessy should be hauled off to a retirement home? Why are you painting such a beautiful picture of her?" I'm glad you asked. Bessy is one of those girls that's a looker. She slips on her lavish high heels, curls her hair just right, puts on her cherry red lipstick, and wears a dress that leaves all the guys drooling.

Then you talk to her.

And then you're no longer interested in her.

Like, at all.

We've all met people like her. That's Bessy to a T. Her burners just get my heart racing they're so hot. But once you open her up, there's nothing but heartbreak.  And just like all lookers, you're always secretly in denial, hoping one day she'll change. Just for once everything will turn out ok.

It started out with cookies that were always a little crisp on top and a little underdone on the bottom. But of course, I was new to this whole "oven" concept, seeing that mac and cheese doesn't require an oven. So I went on believing that I needed to make a few adjustments to my cookie recipe and everything would turn out all right. Next came the banana bread. I started with an actual loaf tin. I was actually quite proud of the fact that I HAD a loaf tin (remember, I didn't cook). And to my dismay, it was completely black on top, and undercooked in the middle! That's 3 cups of almond flour! That's $5! I can barely pay rent, let alone almond flour! Oh the anger. But I just brushed it off. It must be that almond flour cooks differently than regular flour. I should try an 8x8 and make it thin, like a banana bars. So I did. And it burned on top and was undercooked in the middle (see a trend happening?)

I was furious! I was enraged! I secretly cried a little over the loss of my banana bread (but it's ok, when you microwave undercooked banana bread, it magically comes out cooked. Magic Microwave: 1, Bessy: -3). I did some reading. Maybe it's the oven temperature. Maybe it's the heating coils. Maybe I just sucked at cooking and should go eat dirt. I had no idea. All I knew is that I wasn't getting the delicious food that I kept seeing on Pinterest.

Two days before my birthday. I was completely out of almond flour, and completely broke (every penny I owned went to getting to England for the Brittish Formation Championships). But hey, it was my birthday, so why not blow off groceries for a week, who needs to eat, anyway?  So I went out and bought a $10 bag of almond flour which had barely enough flour to make the cake. And just for the record, I was making a lemon yogurt cake. Let me describe this cake for you. Imagine eating a cloud, just about to rain lemon drops. That's this cake. It was sweet, sour, smooth, creamy, rich, moist, all in one pan. Oh, it was heaven-sent. And it had been over 8 months since I'd had it last, so I was well overdue. Ok, so I got the $10 bag of almond flour: check. I bought the lemons and hand squeezed each one: check. I even made sure I had a fresh batch of yogurt (which takes 24 hours to make, mind you): check. Every ingredient was in place. The oven was preheated. I was gonna make the best birthday cake ever. The culinary gods would shine down on this cake, leaving their blessing for all those who'd consume it. It was going to be a glorious day! The timer goes off. The cake is done!

And sure enough, it was burnt on top, and liquid on bottom.  But you know what, I still ate it! With a straw, mind you, but I ate it! No cake for my family, no joy of sweet, sour, smooth, creamy, richy goodness. Just disappointment. Just a lowly man left with a broken heart on such a momentous occasion.

So I dumped Bessy and made myself a no bake cheesecake.