Never Again (In My Kitchen)

I have a few things I am addicted to -besides nicotine, that is. One would be knitting and crochet pattern books. The other -cookbooks!

I've got a pretty healthy supply of cookbooks, in addition to subscribing to a couple websites, each of which list beaucoup recipes.

It's not that I cook all kinds of stuff -fancy or plain -all the time, but I do love to look through cookbooks, especially, and dream of whipping up some of the really yummy looking stuff shown in them. Same applies to the websites too.

I especially like to pick up the little specialty cooking booklets -put out by a major publisher of several cooking monthly magazines. After church today when Kurtis and I went up to the local store to get the Sunday paper, I spied a new one of these pretty little cookbook booklets. I leafed through it and a recipe in there looked really appealing to me so, after looking over the ingredients, I decided what the heck -toss the booklet in the cart and take it home to study it further.

All the recipes in this booklet were supposedly geared towards "Comfort Food." I liked that idea. Liked the thought of comfort food being something yummy but also without tons and tons of preparation too.

After perusing the whole booklet at home, that same recipe I'd briefly scanned at the store was still beckoning me, calling my name. Yessiree, it surely was doing that to me.

I had picked up a nice-sized piece of London Broil and had the idea in mind of cooking that up in the crockpot with a package of onion soup mix and another packet of brown gravy mix, all stirred together with two cups of hot water and poured over the meat to let that simmer a couple of hours so it would have a nice dark brown gravy with good meat as well as onion flavoring to it.

And, I decided to try the recipe I'd spied in this new cookbook booklet too!

The recipe consisted of shredded potatoes, carrots with a little bit of shredded onion in the mix and it was to be cooked in a white sauce with a "hint" of cheddar cheese melted into the white sauce. I don't know why, but it sounded "interesting" and the picture of the dish looked VERY inviting to me too.

Not knowing if anyone would be here to have supper with us, I decided that the initial recipe appeared too small, so I doubled it. That was my first mistake here!

I should know by now not to double a new recipe unless I have at least some idea of how the end result is going to taste -like maybe I have sampled a bit of the dish someplace else. Which, in this case, of course, you know I'd never heard of this dish before today much less ever sampled a bit of it too.

Well, let me tell you -the first comment about the potato-carrot-onion casserole came from Mandy. "Pretty bland," says she.

Yeah -had to agree with that assessment, I did.

But, considering Bill tends to regard my cooking as a bit heavy on the spices and way too spicy quite often for his taste buds, I thought maybe i might be something he would like.

WRONG!

What's more, as I dug into it, I discovered I didn't care for this item at all! Not even on itty-bitty little bit!

Before setting the food on the table, I had told Mandy I wasn't sure how this casserole was going to go over tonight as it was a bit of an experiment. After she took a look at it, she grabbed the camera and took a picture of it. (No, I have no downloaded that photo to my computer as yet plus she intends to use it first on her Facebook.

Wonderful! Let the whole freaking world in on the supper disaster at our house -complete with pictures at 11 p.m. Sure. I love that idea. NOT!

What really gets me is the description of this item in the cookbook -is that the lady who submitted it says that she has been relying on this for more than 30 years and states that is most certainly a strong testimony then for the scrumpdeliciousness of this casserole.

And to that I say, Lady, you need your tastebuds examined!

Thank goodness the meat was just right -done to a nice juicy tenderness, gravy really flavorful and all that. Plus I had a beautiful loaf of "Swedish Kaka" bread my neighbor had made and donated to the Fall Bazaar at our church yesterday to soothe my tormented tastebuds from this yucky casserole.

That, plus I also have a couple pieces left of the really tasty "Creamsicle" fudge-like candy I had purchased at the Bazaar yesterday too.

Oh well, what the heck you gonna do when a food experiment that looks to be so good goes awry?

While trying to eat this concoction, Mandy asked if it was a lot of work to fix and I said yes, and that only added more insult to my injured cooking spirit today.

That will be the last time I ever shred potatoes and carrots and cook them in a special white sauce with a hint of cheese in it too!

It looked about like a baked casserole of coleslaw and even that I think would have tasted a whole hell of a lot better than this dish did!

Considering all these recipes have supposedly been tried and tested for accuracy, flavor, ease of preparation and all that by the food editors of this little cooking booklet, I think maybe they all need to have their taste buds checked out too cause mine sure don't agree with this as being a wonderful entry in the world of wonderful "Comfort Foods."

Nope. NOPE! Never again will this item be fixed -by me -and served to anyone in my family!

They can rest assured in that!