P.S. At least I suffered alone. SWMBO and the kids took one look at my experiments and made themselves a mac 'n cheese dinner.

I had a bit of a rut a couple weeks back. It started off with Valentine's Day paella which was only ok. What what supposed to be saccorat (sp?) was a black burnt mess. But at least we could eat everything above that. I had another edible flop that week, but the worst was on Friday when bay scallops went on sale. I hunted for a recipe on the 'net and found one that looked healthy and good. I was pretty excited about it, but when I sat down for dinner I took one bite, stood up and dumped it into the garbage. I said to my wife, "I'm going to Taco Bell. What do you want?" Without a split second pause her response was, "Five crunchy tacos." And that was that.

John, I'm sorry about your recent cooking flops but that's how we all learn, isn't it? My latest was a large yeast-leavened coffee cake with lots of figs, prunes, walnuts and dried apricots. It looked beautiful but we disliked both the taste and texture. I was debating whether to try and salvage it in some way when DH started singing "...know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em..." so it went right into the garbage can.

Instead of New Year's resolutions, I pick both a cookbook and an area of cooking I'd like to learn more about and practice. Coincidentally, 2011's is to use more fruit in or with savory dishes, since I seemed to be heading in that direction the last few years.

You can find some good ideas for dishes using fruit in Middle Eastern, Braziliian and Spanish cookbooks. I checked out the book on the link below from our library and will be getting it again to make some fruity entrees from the recipes.

Don't get discouraged. Salads with fruits are a good place to experiment and get the balance of the sweet and sour elements in their dressings.

Here is a link that might be useful: Shakespeare's Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook

My most recent miserable failure was cupcakes. I let everything come to room temp, used powdered sugar so it would dissolve nicely, whipped up the egg whites, then added everything else using the hand mixer because I was too lazy to go find a spatula, thus deflating the egg whites. They were dense and dry and kind of burnt on the bottom.

I also recently tried substituting egg with water and oil in a brownie recipe I love, and, on one of the attempts, ended up something resembling chocolate sheetrock. It couldn't be cut into squares-- at least, not without power tools-- but it sort of crumbled apart into small chunks.

My recommendation on cooking with most fruit in a savory capacity is that you usually need added acid, unless you are putting it on something bitter or caramelizing it so much that you're breaking down/burning some of the sugar. Probably a little bit of salt, too.

I made a focaccia a couple weeks back. The thing was the Dh was giving the doggies a hair cut at the time. The clippers are so loud, I didn't hear the timer go off. I caught it, before the focaccia turned into a burnt mass. It would have been great if I had caught it about 10 - 15 minutes earlier. It was a bit dry & a bit dark for my liking.

Advice on cooking with fruit? Pork seems to be friendly to a lot of fruit - apricots, apples, prunes, raisins, cranberries. Maybe try some pork dishes with fruit.

If you want to add fruit to fish, use lemons or limes. They offer the best flavor to them.

Linda

John, I don't understand why you think orange and butter clash....I have made a lovely orange sauce with a chicken breast sauteed in butter....no cornstarch, but orange, a bit of grated zest and a splash of dry white wine. any thickening was from a bit of flour In the chicken, incorporated into the sauce when I deglazed the pan.

As for fruit with meat....mostly I love it. Onion and apple goes well with pork and turkey, I like prunes or dried cherries and red wine cooked with beef...I have an orange sauce I put over salmon. I like a pork roast stuffed with a mix of dry bread, onion, celery and dried fruits like apricots, white raisins and fresh apples....lots of sage and marjoram.
Pineapple on ham is great and I love pineapple in a chicken salad or a chicken stir fry.
Linda C

Linda C, I've been using grapefruit in salads, pineapple in stirfries, lemon with my roast chicken and fish, daughter-fu uses lemon in her stirfries. This was my first foray into orange - maybe it was orange + butter + shrimp that was the problem, or maybe I just did something else wrong. I'll keep trying - feels like I need to learn this. jvh's suggestion of more acid would correspond with your wine splash I think. Maybe I'll try to regain my confidence with a pan-fried trout + applesauce combo, I could probably manage that. I picked up some grapes, planning to experiment with roasted or stewed grapes and whitefish, but the grapes somehow ''disappeared''.

Foas, I find the soccarat to be tricky, in my limited experience it needs the heat to be turned well down for the final soccarat phase, and then I periodically poke a chopstick through the rice to check on the soccarat. Someone needs to invent a glass paella pan so we can monitor the soccarat. I think mad scientist dcarch needs to be put to work. Come to think of it, I have a clear glass pie dish around here somehwere, hmm.

On the WFD #318 thread, I posted a photo of seabass with a tangerine, mango and mint topping. My experience with seafood and orange is to keep it as light as possible so the flavors shine through.

Here is a link that might be useful: WFD#318

My latest baking disappointment = cinnamon rolls made from the no-knead cookbook brioche dough. They were edible, but not worth the calories.

Yesterday, I made a dish with pan-fried chicken pieces, onions, regular potatoes and sweet potatoes. Again, edible, but bland and boring. I think I got cooked/baked out over the holidays and need a break. :o)

Petra, is it the same as this one? http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/?p=357 I had been thinking of trying it.

John....applesauce and trout?? Nooooo....
I suspect there was something besides butter,oranges ands hrimp wrong with your dish....perhaps the orangew as not good? or the shrimp...but I would think you would have smelled bad shrimp. However....maybe it was that iodine flavor some times found in shrimp...
And I think the same about grapes and white fish....unless you add some vinegar...or possibly lime would do it.

Personally, I love fruit with pork.
Almost any kind of fruit
with any kind of pork.

But with fish or seafood?
I don't think so.
At least, not beyond the normal lemon or lime.
The idea of oranges with shrimp
really puts me off.

My most humiliating flop?
A thoroughly burned (as in turned to charcoal)
grilled cheeese sandwich.

Don't ask ! !

Rusty

Jessica, yes, that's the exact recipe I used! Very disappointing because of all the raves about them.

My latest in-the-trash experiment was pecan sticky buns. They didn't rise as well as they should have & the topping with the nuts slid off. So I wound up with heavy-as-lead rolls, crunchy sugar instead of gooey caramel with no pecans because they stuck to the pan. Yuck!

I use OJ & a little rice wine vinegar to deglaze for a pan sauce after sauteing salmon. I'm sure I usually put butter in it as well as ginger & I've never noticed an off taste. I've tried to thicken the sauce with different things but boiling it for a few extra minutes works the best.

Ruthanna, "...know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em..." -- that line got me chuckling. I think it's true, though. There are times when it's simply not worth fussing over saving a dish that didn't turn out well. I've gotten to the point that if I really don't like something I've made, I toss it. I don't want to eat food I don't enjoy. And I don't want the stuff sitting in my fridge, ignored, until it starts growing fuzzy mold.

John, my latest flop was a rye bread recipe that included cocoa powder, molasses, and instant espresso powder. It came out a lovely dark color, but it had a slightly bitter undertone. My husband didn't notice it, but I did. And I simply couldn't get past it. So I made him a couple of sandwiches with it and then tossed the rest.

Everyone's tastes are different. The combination of orange juice, a bit of orange zest, and butter sounds good to me for any kind of fish or seafood. However, reducing the OJ doesn't appeal to me. It seems like it would get too syrupy and concentrated. I'm sure you'll rebound and create something wonderful soon.

Flops...I seem to be having a good many. Two days ago I tried the bread in the dutch oven recipe from the New York Times. I let it sit for the recommended 12 hours, next you are supposed to turn it out and knead a few times. Well, it was as thin as pudding. I try to be very careful in my measuring but thought perhaps I missed counting when adding the flour. Since it was useless as it was, I added another cup of flour and a little yeast, mixed it up, let it sit overnight again and it was still way too thin so I poured it down the drain.

I'm beginning to think yeast is not my friend.

jude

John I like the name "Flopster." That's going into my vocab now! And Ruthanna you made me smile! I'll remember that advice!

Jude, your flop reminds me of my last one, making sourdough waffles, and accidentally getting the rye flour out of the freezer and adding it instead of the whole wheat. Um rye waffles? I DON'T THINK SO!
Other than that I've been on a roll as far as meals go, lots of new recipes and lots of successes. All that could change now that I'm on a new restricted diet. I'm going to have to revamp almost all my meals and I'm sure I'll have some notable flops. Oh, that reminds me of another couple flops I made in pursuit of lowfat meals--cottage cheese bread (not!) and lower fat biscuits (an oxymoron if ever there was one!).

Petra, that's too bad!! Thanks for posting and letting me know. If you want have another go at cinnamon rolls, I made the ones from the pioneer woman blog at Christmas, with cream cheese icing, and they were really nice. (I apologize in advance if you gain 500 pounds).

Wow, dinner was actually edible.

Started making ratatouille again, this time from Julia Child's recipe, individually browning the eggplant and squash slices in oil, then cooking the onions and bell peppers, then the (peeled, seeded, sliced) tomatoes, then layering everything prettily, then

- I got bored, rather, I decided it was going to be a boring dish, so I improvised. Added a little cream, a little cheese, topped with bread crumbs

- jammed the saucepan under the toaster oven broiler - I think thus picture is funny, for some reason, I imagine the pan is embarassed. Anyway, it was quite edible.

Mmm, that ratatouille looks good. Might have to try that soon.

Jessica, yesterday I made raisin bread and cinnamon buns from the Farm Blog (linked below). The dough recipe makes 12 buns and 1 loaf of bread.

The buns turned out very tasty, but they are sort of bread-like (no milk or eggs), so you need to add extra filling. I added raisins to the dough and filled the buns with plenty of butter, brown sugar and almonds. The dough rises beautifully and the buns are big and fluffy. And the bread made a picture-perfect loaf.

Here is a link that might be useful: Straight from the Farm

I spoke too soon. Turns out, SWMBO doesn't like green bell peppers. 20 years married, and I didn't know this. It appears I am not the attentive, listening husband that . . . sigh. Putting the flopster hat back on.

Be careful using really acidic fruit juice with any dairy, including butter. You end up souring or curdling the dairy. Maybe you could experiment with grated rind.

Nope, John. I won't let you put the hat back on. It was an honest mistake. My policy on eating is that I get a short list of things I don't want to eat under any circumstances (horseradish, wasabi, spicy mustard, non-sauteed garlic and onion, dill, and blue cheese. YUCK!!!) and then I shut up about the numerous things I only sort of like and all the little ways I would have prepared it differently. It's conducive to getting cooked for!

Booberry, I thought for sure you were going to have furry focaccia.

Flops are pretty common around here, but only once did I have to take a steaming pot of something directly out to the compost bin because it smelled so badly I didn't want it cooking in my house any more.

The only thing I have done that to was moose stew.... and I don't think I even wanted that in the compost..... I had my husband drive out to the farm and put it in the manure spreader....

Beware of fruit.
My husband won't cook anymore (unless you count mac 'n chz) since the Great Grapefruit Chicken Debacle of '93. He had used the pressure cooker to make some sort of orange chicken dish and decided to improvise...not good. Completely shook his confidence.