A poll about cooking disgusting food

disgusting. at least with mediocre food you can get your calories/nutrients.

i take the passive-aggressive approach: i keep the mediocre food, lying to myself that i'm gonna eat it but then whoops aw man it's been in the fridge 2 weeks GOTTA throw it out, darn.

In the first scenario, are you then ordering a pizza and relaxing and letting your preteen daughters good-naturedly razz you for your incompetence in the kitchen?

keep the mediocre food, lying to myself that i'm gonna eat it but then whoops aw man it's been in the fridge 2 weeks GOTTA throw it out, darn.

Haha, I think this is my girlfriend's approach as well.

lol jaymc

disgusting
not only am i still hungry, but i have wasted a bunch of exotic ingredients

i have made multiple thai curries that were just plain inedible and i invested a lot of time/food/money in trying them out and having all of the necessary parts, etc. just sucks. everyone's cooking is mediocre some of the time. if you blew minds every day, there would be little mind left to blow when it mattered. or at least that's what i tell myself.

worst is cooking way too much of something just passable enough for you to pretend you'll eat it later, only to let it putrefy in tupperware until it is growing fur & ammonia crystals w/ a gathering effluvium of reek in the back of yr fridge.

xpost true! also you can throw some sriracha on average food + bam its ok

xp 'gathering effluvium of reek' is the name of my metal band

keep the mediocre food, lying to myself that i'm gonna eat it but then whoops aw man it's been in the fridge 2 weeks GOTTA throw it out, darn.

Haha, I think this is my girlfriend's approach as well.

― Tyler/Perry's "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" (jaymc), Wednesday, February 9, 2011 3:57 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

so this, then.

most recent examples of both from my experience:

disgusting: a new moroccan stew recipe (don't even know why I was making this, we have a really good moroccan stew recipe already) that had tons of spices, including a LOT of pepper, that ended up so spicy (not hot spicy, but just overwhelming clashes of the various spices) that we couldn't eat it

mediocre: baked tofu with a ginger/garlic sauce. my wife found the recipe and suggested we make it, which seemed odd because she is not big on tofu, but i said ok. of course she ate like three bites and said she'd had enough. the sauce was ok but didn't flavor the tofu at all so it was just bland hot tofu with an ok sauce. also it had corn starch in the sauce so it was unappealingly gelatinous. i got really hungry the next day and ended up eating most of the leftovers and then feeling gross.

xpost true! also you can throw some sriracha on average food + bam its ok

word, you can always add spices/salt/hot sauce. unless you're talking about baked goods, i guess.

xp^^ the passing of time handily 'forced' us not to eat any of the meatloaf recipe my fiance substituted in with freezer-burnt ground turkey instead of beef! SHUCKS.

brb, putting Tabasco on terrible cupcakes

Yeah, mediocre is at least salvageable as already noted.

Mediocre is worse. I'm happy to laugh about a culinary adventure so disastrous that it was irretrievable. Eating mediocre food is such a miserable experience.

brb, putting Tabasco on terrible cupcakes

There is only one dr. strongo

Eating mediocre food is such a miserable experience.

Good lord, it ain't the end of the world.

a new moroccan stew recipe (don't even know why I was making this, we have a really good moroccan stew recipe already) that had tons of spices, including a LOT of pepper, that ended up so spicy (not hot spicy, but just overwhelming clashes of the various spices) that we couldn't eat it

could you have added more water/everything else to balance out the spice ratio?

i've got lamb biryani still sitting in the fridge in the crock pot i made it in. was ruined by me using brown basmati instead of white (actually, gonna blame my roommate here. always gets oddball stuff cause "hey look, brown basmati i've never bought that before!!", y'know?). the rice NEVER got cooked (i stayed up til 2am hoping it would) and by the time it was underooked-yet-edible, that lamb was super overcooked.

No of course not! But I can get more joy out of (my own) disasters.

(xp to Ned)

worst thing is i tasted some of the lamb when it was perfectly done and it was really tasty, i was looking forward to having plates and plates of it.

could you have added more water/everything else to balance out the spice ratio?

― bows don't kill people, arrows do (Jordan), Wednesday, February 9, 2011 3:09 PM (1 minute ago)

maybe? i'm not a very improvisatory cook, i mainly stick to recipes and am not good at quick fixes like that. i think we were just grossed out and disheartened and wanted to give up on it.

always eat it. always. you'll learn from your experiences.

Chocolate fish, LJ. Chocolate fish.

i'm the same way, but my gf is the opposite, never uses a recipe. every now and then this has resulted in soups of gigantic proportions, via overspicing (although usually too much spice = maybe just enough).

Lots of soup is great -- divide it out, freeze it, set for those days when you just want to heat up something and eat it.

I make soup nearly every Sunday and do that for meal throughout the rest of the week.

a new moroccan stew recipe (don't even know why I was making this, we have a really good moroccan stew recipe already) that had tons of spices, including a LOT of pepper, that ended up so spicy (not hot spicy, but just overwhelming clashes of the various spices) that we couldn't eat it

could you have added more water/everything else to balance out the spice ratio?

instead of water, make a cream sauce or add plain yogurt. milk helps neutralize spices.

I'm still back on someone making a horrible cake and being all "... maybe if we put some thyme on it, it will help"

I might have a weekend project beyond memorizing spirituals

Chocolate CHEESE fish iirc

Gotta say the mediocre food is worse for me. It's just dispiriting. With the occasional ott failure, I can say "yeah that's an ingredient I need to leave to the pros." (best-worst example, octopus)

man see this is a thing where if the food is bad/mediocre after i've followed the recipe explicitly, i just do whatever i can to make it better. generally speaking if yr food is mediocre, adding lime/lemon/vinegar is probably a safe bet. acid is something that most ppl (in my observations) just don't add to their food like ever

xp otm, w/r/t failure: some shit is just next-level. but mediocre food is almost always salvageable!

I have to vote failure as worse, if only in memory of my dad's sad attempt at making roast goose stuffed with prunes for one very sad Christmas dinner

That...that just is wrong.

this thread = why i don't cook

don't blame the thread, you were already a bad cook

There is nothing that depresses me more in the whole world than a meal I've cooked failing horribly, especially when the ingredients were pricey/specially bought. I pride myself on being a good cook so failures just make ME feel like a failure.

But that said I dont follow recipes, so I like being cavalier and experimenting anyway. Not Tep-level "oh hey, smoked bananas!" crazy, but I like to have fun.

my failures are never disgusting, merely incredibly bland

i am by no means an adventurous cook tho

La Lechera needs to come talk to the group about octopus. It's one of her homemade staples for meals and snacks.

ha that makes it sound like she breeds them specially in her bathtub

LOL

You rang?

I love octopus and squid, and have found that it's pretty easy to cook -- squid in particular. Especially the squid I breed in my bathtub.

Argh baby octopi. I love seafood and i dont squick easy but I find it hard to get past the eating of those weeeny little suction-cupped leggies.

(I love calamari tho)

At least I don't make uighur salad like some people I know.

I mean, that is just gross.

trayce do u eat kangaroo

I do! It is nice! Its a really gamey dark meat.

This evening I cooked squid for the first time ever, and it was really easy and delicious. Just fried it for a minute with some harissa.

had it once when i was there -- seemed a lot like venison (ie, good)

Just fried it for a minute with some harissa.

Reminds me of my plan to open a North African restaurant called Harissa Explains It All.

you can have a menu item called the Moroccan roll

mookie: yeah it probably is similar to venison (Im guessing - never had venison). Especially good soaked in red wine.

Cats love it, too. But it is quite rich.

Voted 'disgusting/throw away' because I always end up eating something dispiriting like beans on toast while ruminating over my failure to cook real food like a proper grown up adult.

mediocre food is just like "hm well x and y dont go as well together as i thought" or "added a bit too much x and cooked it too long" zzzzzzzz.

spectacular failures are HILARIOUS. you sit down to eat, take a bite, raise an eyebrow... thirty minutes later, you're comparing it to roadkill, something out of ghostbusters, a neutron star, you're almost through the bottle of wine and u can't stop laughing.

Mediocre food just makes me sad, in that "sunday night i feel blue" way, like I'll sit there and eat it anyway but it is glum and anticlimactic.

But, I cry when a kid loses their ice cream on the ground so whatev.

Cooking disgusting food and throwing it out is the worst. So depressing, leaves you feeling like you've failed at life until you get to the laughing-about-it part.
And especially the worst if it's most of the meal that you're throwing away.

We laugh now about my way, way, WAY oversalted potato gratin full of fancy stupid cheeses and god knows whatelse. My pro tip: if you already have a tried and true way of cooking something very simple, do not seek out fancy versions of said recipe. They will only bring you pain, sadness, and a bin full of potato gratin. BLEUCH.

When I'm cooking for other people, I spend the whole consuming of said meal apologising for bits of it, even if it came out ok. Why I do not know.

At least I don't make uighur salad like some people I know.

― ergonomically chromium plated fish slice (La Lechera), Wednesday, February 9, 2011 5:00 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

What is uighur salad? I Googled (with and without quotation marks) and came up with no definitive answer.

I vote "Mediocre enough that you force yourself to eat it" b/c if it's so bad I throw it away, I will just get some acceptable delivery/take-out. Though I forgot that sometimes when money was tight or I was ravenous I wound up eating something ridiculous like saltines and salsa :(

ramen + peanut butter + soy sauce ftw

Huh. I like noodles with peanut sauce, but (Thai) peanut sauce is certainly more complex than that mixture.

Reminds me of my plan to open a North African restaurant called Harissa Explains It All.

oh this is geeeenius

Huh. I like noodles with peanut sauce, but (Thai) peanut sauce is certainly more complex than that mixture.

my favorite thing is just a drizzle of sesame oil on top of rice or noodles. it makes oodles of difference.

My most spectacular cooking failure:

My ex-boyfriend and I had a big ass garden with tomatoes, tons of herbs, and bell peppers. I was excited for the harvest and I went all out making a totally from scratch pasta sauce. It was way more work than I ever put into cooking, but I was thrilled until, after letting the it simmer for an hour, I tasted the sauce, which was overpoweringly minty. Instead of oregano, I had added a bunch of catnip. There was no saving it and we ate breakfast at the Waffle House instead.

There was also the time that I was making a FABULOUS beef and vegetable soup when I was interrupted by a neighbor telling me that they were towing cars on my street to make way for construction. The cop was a dick (he let me have the car, but wouldn't let me go until he told me how lucky I was not to be towed) and I wound up bitching with a neighbor about him and then going to find parking. Afterward, I went to the bookstore on my block where I worked and chatted with the cashiers. I was probably gone for 90 minutes, and when I got back threw away not only the soup, but the pot as well.

lol'd at catnip pasta, Jesse. I once made wholemeal bread and instead of adding half a cup of wheatgerm, I added half a cup of bulgur (the tabouleh stuff) because the containers were the same. Mmmm gravel bread. No fun.

I made scones with plain flour once :/ they came out like little floury rocks >:|

good for lobbing at passing cars, tho

or when you make chili or something stewy and yummy and the bottom of the pot gets burned and you think you can save the stew and it won't be so bad but it all tastes like burnt stew and it makes you sooooo sad

Mmmmm. "smoked" risotto =)

idk these options are as bad as each other. the thing i hate most is spending two hours making something fancy and having it turn out shit AND leaving me with a huge ass pile of dishes to do afterwards.

but then i am def not one of those ppl who finds cooking 'relaxing'.

speaking of ingredient mixups: my mum once made sausage rolls with sweet pastry by mistake. mmmmmm.

I don't know exactly what a sausage roll is, but what I'm imagining sounds like it would be good with a sweet pastry. Like pork breakfast sausage with maple syrup.

yeah, no... it was really not a good combo. tho tbh i've never understood the combination of maple syrup and porcine products, anyway.

Dont they have sausage rolls in the US? NOOOOOO! I'm not coming any more, that is IT :crosses arms:

oh man the first sausage roll i had when i was back nz last year was SO GOOD

and bacon and egg pie!!!!!

I don't know. we don't have them by the name "sausage roll" that I'm aware of.

just1n3, what about pork + brown sugar?? Honey?

It is true. There are no sausage rolls in America. The only time I have had one on these shores was at a Charles Dickens fair, made by Britishers.
I made them from scratch once but without the pork sausage mystery meat they don't quite taste the same.

*sobs*. Maybe I'll have to bring some with me. I can start a business! I'll move to the US and start a sausage roll companie for pining ex-pats!

(companie? wtf is wrong with me today)

yeah it really is the mystery meat that is key. jesse, nz/aussie 'sausage' i think is often quite different to the american version. anyway, a sausage roll is pork sausage meat rolled into a log-like case of puff pastry and served with (wattie's!) tomato sauce.

kind of surprised bacon n egg pies are not a thing here! they seem like something americans would really be in to.

Trayce: YES!!! You can call it Its A Long Way To The Shop If You Want A Sausuage Roll

Wattie's tomato sauce! Noooo

Rosella or death

i made jordan try wattie's when we were there and he was far from impressed.

lol when trayce comes over, VG you have to come down to the bay area and we'll go to this pub called 'the new zealander' in alameda - i bet they have sausage rolls!!

except that it turns out it's closed down :/

We need to make it our mission to find bay area sausage rolls for Trayce's visit.

Wattie's was always too seasoned to me, like poor man's ketchup. Shrug.

What kind of strange and alien foodstuffs are you all on about

Sausage rolls!!! Food of the gods!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2214/2082186217_a9f10fb0d4.jpg

Also meat pies are hard to come by here too, Trayce. Soz. But best you know now so we can prepare you.

Apparently there's an Irish Bakery on Potrero Hill in SF that does sausage rolls. Justin3, are you familiar?

voted the disgusting option; it's such a huge waste of time, money, and effort. UGH

I confess I'm not good at eating the mediocre, either, though. Which is not good because I'm not a good cook.

Also now it's the middle of the night and I want a damn sausage roll, which I have never heard of before in my life. THANKS A LOT ILX

is a sausage roll similar to a stromboli?

Not really. Its basically seasoned pork sausage meat encased in pastry. Pretty simple, spartan...mmmm delicious.

Someone should go the the US and open branches of West Cornwall Pasty or even a soggy flat Gregg's.

See America, this is what happens when you war with the English. No sausage rolls.

Or HP sauce.

They have HP sauce in the "international" section at our Safeway

And probably also those Heinz 'pudding in a can' things. Why? Because no bugger in the UK will eat them, so we send them to America.

MEDIOCRE. I have three day old curried rice that did not turn out perfect sitting in my fridge. I know I am never going to eat it.

Nice thing about winter is that bad food can go outside in the trash and won't stink up the alley.

man this brings back bad memories of the time when, cooking on somebody else's budget, I decided to make crab dip - I found a recipe that used imitation crab, decided to buy real crab instead, sort of maybe doubled the amount of crab in the process because I was confused by how to measure the crab, and ended up with a huge pile of crab lightly brushed with cheese and other spices. it was really gross

that sausage roll looks like it has stigmata, btw

There's a subset of 'so disgusting' where you've not only made something totally inedible but also wasted a tonne of money on the ingredients.

turning really good ingredients into terrible food is the worst

MEDIOCRE. I have three day old curried rice that did not turn out perfect sitting in my fridge. I know I am never going to eat it.

http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/asksam/keepingfoodsafe/asksamcooking/#A220063

^^^ snoball: helping u find reasons to throw away food you don't want to eat since 3:15 in the afternoon

ugh sausage roll. dnw.

i tried to make a black-eyed pea masala right after new years and it was just REALLY DULL. I also made way too much. I had to add a lot of feta cheese to make it taste like something (and then it just tasted like feta cheese). I ended up throwing out most of it.

Disgusting, mainly because I am really cheap and it kills me to have wasted money on something that's not going to be used.

Now I want a sausage roll.

Feeed therr WORLLLDDD
Me-di-ocre Cupcakes with tabasco Sauce......

VG i have not heard of that bakery but i'll make an effort to visit next time i'm in the city and report back to you! maybe they have custard squares and lamingtons and real-cream filled doughnuts, too???

omg imagine if they did!

wth, America? We Canadians managed to get sausage rolls. Though ours are usually appetizers, an inch or two long, with no sauce on top that I have ever seen. British Empire FTW!

we circumsized our sausage rolls and called them toastie dogs/pigs in a blanket

you tell yourself whatever you like, Dan Perry.

it's best when homemade crap turns inedible so you can rationalize ordering pizza or carry out.

^^^^^

any excuse for za is a good one imo

This thread MADE me buy a sausage roll even though I'd already had dinner. Yes, forced me to, left me no choice, none at all.

All my meals turn out mediocre or terrible :( which means that I avoid cooking, which means that I don't get any better at it. Last time I tried to cook something more than a ready meal it actually turned out fairly pleasant, but I got so anxious trying to synchronise everything and keep an eye on all the various different pans that I didn't feel at all like eating once it was done.

i love how the posts on this thread are divided into "all my cooking is awesome so even my disasters are spectacular" and "all my cooking sucks so mediocre is what i'm aiming for"

I've never really done either of these things because all my cooking is awesome. If it isn't, I just add chilli and serve with Mayo until it is awesome.

Simon Mayo?

Last night I royally fucked up some poached eggs and also fucked up toast (I don't have a toaster, so I put the bread in the oven, but it just dried out, and never browned), but I ate it anyway. Very unsatisfying, so I went for some hummus that I made a few weeks ago and froze, and it turned out I had fucked that up, too (very grainy), so I just sat and ate plain Triscuits with water ;__;

o man! such a terrible story :(

definitely the second scenario is worse. if it's mediocre, i throw it out. nothing less acceptable to me than a mediocre dinner after a long day.

It wouldn't have been as bad if I hadn't been reading this thread, which made me aware of my failures.

Triscuits + water is actually quite good. But it sounds sad.

For some reason, I was really craving Triscuits the other day.

i go crazy for triscuits, they're so like bountiful and flaky and wheaty and salty and delicious

T/S: Triscuits or Wheat Thins? (which I always type as "Wheat Things")

i have been meaning to start that poll. do it.

Triscuits are amazing. So much better than Wheat Thins.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Triscuits have zero flavor and an unappleaing texture. Taste like something people ate before they figured things out.

are you from 1964? have you never heard of
SUNDRIED TOMATO TRISCUITS?
ROASTED GARLIC TRISCUITS?
ROSEMARY AND OLIVE OIL TRISCUITS?
GARDEN HERB TRISCUITS?

even regular triscuits have a subtle, refined, adult flavor

n/a otm

Triscuits: It's all about Cracked Black Pepper & Olive Oil, bitches

(sorry does not put these delicious Triscuit crackers in my mouth, Carl)

yeah i really should know about all the newer flavors of something i abhor, my bad. they have all those flavors for wheat thins, too, which starts with a non-cardboard texture and taste.

I tell you the one thing I am going to eat when I get to the US - Saltines. I want Saltines.

you make me laugh ... talk to me when you learn to appreciate a grown man's cracker, not a little boy's "wheat thin"

xpost

seriously only thought Triscuits were eaten by people with masochistic food neurotics, this has been enlightening.
if you like Saltines, think you should try Triscuits!

"billy, you ever had a grown's man cracker?"

i like the name triscuits because it implies that the bi in biscuit is a signifier of numerical function

while biscuits can only offer two scuits per serving, we offer three

Three dimensions of lack of flavour

prob because it is xps

biscuit comes from latin for twice cooked iirc

triskets - good for stackin' stuff on top
wheat thins- good for dippin' into crap

chicken in a fuckin biscuit

chicken stuffed w/chicken-in-a-biscuits then wrapped within an enormous biscuit

are you from 1964? have you never heard of
SUNDRIED TOMATO TRISCUITS?
ROASTED GARLIC TRISCUITS?
ROSEMARY AND OLIVE OIL TRISCUITS?
GARDEN HERB TRISCUITS?

Tbh, pretty much the only places I shop are Trader Joe's and a local produce/ethnic market, so whenever I do set foot in a trad supermarket, I always boggle at the extent to which soft drinks and snack products have diversified. Obv. there have always been different flavors of potato chips or whatever, but I feel like there's been an explosion within the last 10 years or so.

Looking forward to food scientists to develop the Quadriscuit.

I had to quit CIAB back in the nineties. I'd finish a box in one sitting.

quadscuits? quintscuits? hexscuits?

chicken stuffed w/chicken-in-a-biscuits then wrapped within an enormous biscuit

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Thursday, February 10, 2011 4:47 PM (15 seconds ago) Bookmark

chicken-in-a-biscuit in chicken in a biscuit

Tbh, pretty much the only places I shop are Trader Joe's and a local produce/ethnic market, so whenever I do set foot in a trad supermarket, I always boggle at the extent to which soft drinks and snack products have diversified. Obv. there have always been different flavors of potato chips or whatever, but I feel like there's been an explosion within the last 10 years or so.

― Tyler/Perry's "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" (jaymc), Thursday, February 10, 2011 4:47 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

laaaa deeee daaaaa

i will say that driving down to NC in december, we stopped at a gas station that had like 12 varieties of pringles and that kind of blew my mind. i guess i'm fairly up to date on my crackers but a little behind in the times in my cylindrically-encased processed potato products

Also, the flavored Triscuits are fantastic. And one good thing to do with plain Triscuits is lay a few out on a plate, put a small chunk of sharp cheddar on each one, nuke them for 0:20, and drop a pickled jalapeno slice on each one.

you should poll all the pringle flavors so i know which to try

I like making mini-ruebens with the rye triskets.

feel like we could use a really good meme about preferred eating styles, pringles, and disgusting food to tie this all together

oh well

lol

all you think about is meme all the time

No time to start a poll. U do it.

I lv both triscuits and wheat things. I don't care for the flavored varieties of either and I have tried MANY varieties. MANY bc Dominicks had a crazy sale on both ( $.99 each iirc) and I bought 10-15 boxes of them.

all you think about is meme all the time

BTW I love the sausage roll conversation I kicked off <3

...and this little piggy went meme meme meme all the way home.

The closest I've got to a foodfail recently was a rescue attempt of some venison sausages that were slowly going cryo in my freezer. I skinned them, chopped them into meatballs, quartered a bunch of mushrooms, made a shallots/beef stock/red wine base for what became a massive but merely acceptable stew in the sense that I didn't finish it all and removed a repurposed carton that was packing fuzz a couple of days ago. Cannot eat anything four days running that isn't spiced (protip: if the curry you've made is too harsh/overspiced, best thing for it besides a few spoonfuls of yoghurt/coconut milk is probably an overnight rest in the fridge).

Sausage roll orphans in the US: for an approximation of the British version, grab some puff pastry and some variant of Jimmy Dean (skinless 'links' or the sausagemeat), roll out the pastry so you can cut it into four-inch-wide strips. Before laying the links etc along the bottom of the pastry strips, brush some mustard or ketchup or onion marmalade or HP (up to you) along that edge. Roll the sausagemeat out into a similar shape if that's what you're using, and place it the same way as the links would be. Roll the pastry around the sausage and seal the pastry lengthwise with the tines of a fork, score the top of the roll on the bias like this ---> /////// then egg wash the tops before baking on a sheet at say 200c/375f.

foodfail

I forsee a tumblr/blog and book deal in your future...

I think the worst is when you cook a disgusting, inedible dish, but it is also made of the only food you have, and you have no more money to buy something edible, so every bite is a punishing but necessary chore.

during such occasions I urge myself to photosynthesize

haha "become a heterotroph you bad-cooking shit" would be a good mantra on such a day.

Will rep for Caraway Seed Triscuits omg omg omg. Wheat Thin(g)s are tasty also, but maybe a little less healthy-tasting?

My problem with trying to replicate sausage rolls is I want them to taste like Mum's or the ones from the bakery in Colac and they always end up disappointing me. Absence of Rosella sauce also deepens the sadness,

Hate it when I get distracted and accidentally overcook zucchini. Hate soggy zucchini, bums me out.

_all you think about is meme all the time_

This was an accident.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

just cooked some calamari squid rings as a side to some potato salad with some mixed mayo/sriracha. That's my first time trying squid and I found its texture and taste so repulsive I couldn't even swallow the first mouthful. It was so utterly repulsive and alien to me I binned the lot and it has killed my appetite for the rest of the afternoon. There is something deeply troubling about eating deep sea aliens to me, never again.