Willing to fail

Failures of 2015

 For my first blog post of 2016 I have decided to reflect on my failures. Not in a negative way, though technically failures are negative. At times you have to fail in order to succeed. Do I sound like a fortune cookie? As you read my failures you should reflect on your own and come to the same realization that I came to, which is for all my failures I have had SO many more successes.

Let's jump into these:

1. Bagels: I tried my hand at making my own bagels. Now to be fair they tasted like a bagel, they DID NOT look like a bagel. As you can see they look like a rolly polly. You know what I mean those little bugs that curl into a ball when scared. Just don't picture that when you eat them. Okay, back to the food so these bagels may not look the part but with a little more work I think they would look like a bagel. My failure was that I did not connect the ends correctly. I tried rolling the dough into a rope and then smooshing the ends together. I think it might be easier if I got a donut cookie cutter and used that instead.

2. Apple Pie Bites: Now these little guys have an expanding problem. I just realized I might have the same problem. The crust seemed to take over the pie. I am all for thick crust in a pie. I am sad when I eat pie and every bite doesn't have crust in it. This may be a little too much crust. On top of the crust invading the apple filling like it was an act of war, it has no form. If you borrow your grandmothers magnifying glass you can see that some of the crust is pinched. When the dough was raw I pinched all the edges. But crust will be crust and sometimes it just wants to be a hula hoop, smooth and round no pinching involved.

3. Turkey wrap: The name alone summons feelings of failure. I tried my hand at hummus. Tried being the word of the day. As first I was trying (theirs that try word again) to make a chick pea salad but it was, ehh. I cooked chick peas added raw red onion and then whipped in Greek yogurt with some other seasonings I can't remember. Well as you can tell just reading it makes me think of something they would serve at a hospital, healthy and void of flavor. So when you first don't succeed try making hummus. That is what I did. I took all of the "salad" and threw it in the blender. I added olive oil until it was creamier that before. Not creamy like hummus but not solid, which was the second problem. So now with a blender full of semi hummus I didn't know what to do with it. I did what any one would do and turned it into some sort of sandwich. I did a wrap since I had large tortillas on hand which brought me to the third issue. Everything is the same color. After one bite I tossed it. Giving up is sometimes the best option. It means getting to start over.

4. Lemon Raspberry bars: These little guys were bought and paid for. Which means I had to get them to work. Having never enjoyed lemon bars in my life its hard to know when its good. Lemon and raspberry have been paired together for ages and so I figure it should work. Which to be fair after a little finagling they did come together. The flavor was on point, it was the crust that failed. With lemon bars you are supposed to bake the crust first, which is like baking a square sugar cookie. Then when its almost cooked through add the liquid lemon raspberry topping. Then cook it all again till both are stiff. My problem occurred when I didn't cook my crust all the way through so when I added the liquid it just turned to mush. My husband advised me to throw it int the freezer to stiffen it up which worked (he is so smart). Once I was plating these little bite size lemon bars I noticed certain areas of the crust was not cooked still. What did I do, you ask? (I had made these for someone, to serve at a party the next morning). I did what any of you would do I took a butter knife and scraped all the raw crust off the bottom of the bar and prayed no one turned them over to realize some had no crust.

This brings me to my final failure of 2015.

5. Me: Don't shake your head and tell me I'm not a failure. Let me explain why I am putting myself in my failure pile. At the start of 2015 I was so gung ho about starting a business and catering my food to people in my area. At the end of 2015 I have ONE invoice to show for it. I, like a lot of people don't know how to sell a product. I can eat food and tell you how amazing it is but trying to convince you to eat my food is a lot harder than I thought it would be. So as the year ended I had convinced one person that my food was better than something they could grab at the local Costco. On the bright side I am still convinced my food is good its me that failed.

Looking back failures can come many different ways, it can be the ingredients or even the recipe and sometimes it can be you.