So here are a few recipes that didn’t quite make it on LLK this year. I feel like I’m letting you look in my junk drawer a little bit here. I’m not exactly putting my best foot forward in this post, but I guess I’m secure enough in our friendship and trust you won’t judge me too harshly. I wouldn’t exactly call these recipes disasters or failures, because if they were that bad I probably wouldn’t have bothered taking pictures! It’s more like these are the recipes I had hoped to share with you, but they just weren’t quite up to the standard.
Pumpkin Hummus
Tasted nothing like pumpkin.
Roasted Artichoke Hummus
Tasted nothing like artichoke. Enough with the hummus variations!
Panko Encrusted Salmon
I spread a spinach and artichoke dip on top of the salmon and then sprinkled them with Panko before baking them. Sounds like a good idea but they were kind of blah.
White Chocolate Dipped Homemade Graham Crackers
I rolled them out too thick and they were so dry. Your dog might like them!
Honey Lime Chili Marinated Chicken
Couldn’t taste the honey. or the lime. or the chili.
Stuffed Brown Butter Sugar Cookies
The cookie base for these were good, but I tried to stuff some sort of chocolate/caramel candy in them and when I tasted them the next day they were hard rather than soft and chewy in the center. No go.
Carrot Zucchini Oat Muffins
I really wanted to make a muffin with oat flour. Waaaaay too healthy.
Banana Oat Muffins
I really need to give up on the oat muffin idea! These were dry and dense and weighed about a pound each.
Cashew Blondies
These little guys were too greasy and did not hold together very well. But with a scoop of ice cream on them they weren’t too bad!
Brown Butter Garlic Penne
Perfectly tasty, but I realized as I was photographing this bowl of pasta it’s pretty much the same thing any eight year old could make themselves for lunch. Pasta + Butter + Parmesan Cheese = Even with a giant parsley leaf it’s not a recipe!
Roast Beef and Sundried Tomato Cream Cheese Panini
Apparently there is such a thing as too much cheese! Other than that it wasn’t awful but just didn’t wow me.
So those are all the things I now know won’t work. As long as I’m learning I’m okay with a not-so-great recipe popping up every now and then. Just that much closer to success right?
See you all next year!
I love this Julie! I know, I’ve had my share of fails. Depending on the recipe, I sometimes give it a second time or even third time but all depending how much I want it . LOL 🙂
So true Katya. Sometimes I just give up, but if I want it enough I’ll tweak and keep trying :0)
I think you should still post the recipe for the garlic brown butter penne! Or the “recipe,” that is. Even if what you listed above were flops, your photography is still wonderful. :]
That’s very sweet of you to say Traci!
Thank you for posting this. I enjoyed reading the flops as much as your “hits” (which photographed beautifully so you wouldn’t know they were flops)-we all have them (I certainly have my share!). But it’s rare in this age of social media to project what is real and transparent because we can control what others see to perceive a false reality. So a big “thank you” for being honest in your blog! I hope 2015 is a year of wonderful food and wonderful flops for you. God bless!
Hi Nova, you are so right! I remember seeing another food blogger post her recipe flops last year, and I loved seeing that glimpse of “real life” behind the scenes. The recipes I share here are what I dream up to share with my little family, but I do wait for good light, and try to style my dishes to make them look as appealing as they are to me in person. I hope I never come across as fake or unrealistic. Just a simple girl who loves to cook here! Thank you so much for your sweet comment.
Your pics dont seem unrealistic to me. You do a great job with it. Keep on taking all those great shots- it’s what I (need to) see and it helps inspire me (and I’m sure many readers) so we want to try your recipes. We eat with our eyes first, right? And I find that to be so true with my children esp my picky eater.
Cook on & snap away!!! 😉
What a great idea! It’s so unbelievable how many things I’ve made that don’t make it on my blog too!
Always so fun to look back and remember the ones that weren’t the best. At least we learn from them right?
Surprisingly, it has been hard to find recipes that use actual roasted garlic – which is a new thing to me. I happened upon your roasted garlic scalloped potatoes- which I will try soon – but then I wanted to figure out how to search your site to see if you had more roasted garlic recipes. After finally finding your search box on the bottom of the page, I was led to your list of nonstarters which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. I’m still not sure it is possible that panini has to much cheese though. Thanks so much for sharing this page. Great idea.