Growing up. The story of The Three (Failed) Recipes.

I don't know why, but I always get fooled by beautiful photos of food that promise me mine will look and taste even better. A few weeks ago, I wanted to make this delicious-looking Thai recipe from Good Food. It had chicken or turkey I don't remember exactly, noodles and some spices that simply vanished! It had no taste whatsoever. I double checked the recipe to see if I did something wrong, but I'd done everything exactly how they said. Anyway, we only ate half a plate each and then tried to convince ourselves that we will eat it the following week. That never happened and we threw it out.

Another failed recipe that seems to haunt me forever and ever is chocolat coulant or moelleux au chocolat. A few years ago I was obsessed with Heston Blumenthal's Kitchen Chemistry on Discovery Channel. One day, he made that horrible horrible sweet that hates me so much. Apparently it's very easy: make the ganache and refrigerate it, make the batter and put it all together. Sounds great, it's fuckin HELL!! Tried it back then, when I was about 10 or 12 and I ended up grounded cause I made a mess in the kitchen. Tried it last year when it wasn't that coulant... and again last week when my dad was very much impressed by the contestants of MasterChef that made it. I tried. I tried three more times before I threw in the towel. Three times in an hour, I think that's called obsessive-compulsive behavior. Failed again. Well, let me tell you something: I will never ever try to make chocolat coulant until the day I actually see, in real life, how this sweet from Hell is made.

Moving on, I've been meaning to make a Lithuanian beet soup a.k.a the pink soup. Well I made it alright, but it sucked. It's extremely sweet and no matter how much salt, pepper and spices I put in it, its sweetness hasn't changed. Thank God I only made enough for 4 servings! It looks awesome though...

Anyway, this week hasn't been that bad after all. On Friday I made the most awesome mushroom cream soup in half an hour, a few days ago chocolate almond whole wheat biscotti, today madeleines and (last week) the greatest turkey cumin soup. All of which are very healthy! And dad actually made a top 3 for my soups: no. 3 the mushroom cream soup, no. 2 the turkey cumin soup (my personal favorite) and no. 1 the tomato soup (which I also found too sweet). I'll soon post the recipes for the first two soups.

The Chocolate Almond Whole Wheat Biscotti was actually a gift for a friend for helping me with a lot of things lately. I made my first biscotti last week but I forgot something so it wasn't how I'd imagined it would be. But this time I got it right. Everyone was delighted and the biscotti were gone within several hours.
Oh and today I made these awesome Orange Madeleines that I suggest be eaten with some cranberry jam. Can't wait for someone else, besides me and my lovely dogs, to taste them! 

  
Also, I made my first fresh pasta! I made whole wheat farfalle that tasted kinda weird compared to the packaged ones but next time I'll know when to stop with the flour! But they were so cute and I let them to dry over night and the next day cooked them for lunch with my homemade (personal recipe) tomato sauce for pasta! Aren't they cute, little bows to eat! <3


For the rest of the week I have in mind to make my first baguette (ça va être un défi!), dad asked for some tomato soup so I'm gonna make that too, pineapple flowers for a healthy desert and strawberry jam. But what I've learned this week is to never take something for granted just because it looks unreal because most of the times, that's what it is - unreal.