My Wednesday Pantry-Trial and Error

      

     If necessity is the mother of invention, boredom must be the father, or at least an aunt or uncle. I'm in a rut on the meal front and am using the creativity of others in cook books or on-line to try some new things. Sometimes I follow the directions exactly, and other times I change things based on what I have on hand, or preferences. Most of the time I am satisfied with the result even if it does not become part of a rotation, but sometimes there's errors with the trials. 

     First, on the fail front was the cider beer bread. I did not change anything in the directions and yet, the kitchen smelt like a brewery, and the bread tasted heavy. The first warm piece was OK, but as the loaf cooled, less so. I mixed up a little of the maple butter and that helped, but it is not a recipe we will try again. Maybe it was the out of date cider. I've had good luck though with making a regular beer bread with old beer-maybe it was the sweet nature of this as it required  maple syrup in the recipe. DH had a piece on Sunday and said it was OK, but I won't be eating any more of it, and feel bad for the waste. 

     With the bread was a rice, broccoli, cheese and chicken hot dish, a favorite. I used leftover broccoli from the night before, and had  some in the freezer from a month or more ago. Mistake-we ended up picking out the freezer broccoli as the taste and texture was off. No sense ruining the meal, even if it meant waste. 

     Sunday's dinner was my tried and true lasagna I've been making since I was 14, nothing fancy, but DH has been wanting it for a while. I was a bit leery after Saturdays bread fail to try this no knead French bread recipe, but overall, it was good. I froze the second loaf for later in the week, and the leftovers of loaf one were part of my lunch Monday. I think if I make again, I will dissolve the yeast with warm water, and add to the dry ingredients, similar to how I did the  artisanal bread recipe. I would have liked a bit more rise and think that will help. 

     I will be making the Apple Cheddar sausage balls this week, but I didn't have anymore cheddar until I went to the store, and by then, I wanted a quick meal. I forgot about a couple crowns of broccoli in the refrigerator, and earlier I had taken one of the large chicken breasts from the freezer. Stir fry! I cooked the chicken after cutting in smaller pieces in  garlic, onion, and soy sauce. I added two cups of water, then the broccoli to steam it through, along with more seasoning, I made a packet of ramen noodles with 12 the packet, and mixed that in with the stir fry, for sort of a stir fry noodle bowl. The end result was not 1/2 bad, though could have benefitted from more pepper during the cooking or some of the  General Tsao sauce, but I didn't want to open the bottle. There's enough leftover for my lunch today. While not a roaring hit, it was different, and I enjoyed trying something new. I have a LA Cookbook inspired recipe for later in the week. 

     I'm thinking about adding a separate blog for my Pantry posts-nothing but food, and a whole lot of trials-likely a lot of errors. I know there are a gazillion of these and I might not have enough content, but it would be a new project for me for Covid stay at home and empty nester life. I'd be honest an post all the fails as well, maybe  a few product reviews. kitchen hacks, and other kitchen miscellanea. I'll do what I have lots of time for, think on it.