That’s right, no new recipe this week. My apologies. I had some serious struggles last week.

The first was supposed to be a roasted cauliflower and kale soup. Carrots, shallot, cauliflower, kale, vegetable stock. It tasted exactly how it sounds.

I absolutely destroyed my kitchen pouring the concoction into the food processor. What I should have photographed instead of the pretty roasted cauliflower was the end result, which was a very unfortunate shade of brownish-orange. And the splatters all over my white oven and refrigerator. It’s a good thing I clean obsessively.

I couldn’t stomach this as a soup, so I re-purposed it as a pesto of sorts and ate it over bowtie pasta. With a healthy serving of Parmesan cheese, I could handle it for two nights. The rest, sadly, went into the trash can. I HATE wasting food, and not just because I don’t have a garbage disposal so any food in the trash ends up smelling terrible within 3-4 hours.

The next attempt was a noodle dish: Chinese five spice and ginger chicken thighs with Thai rice noodles, bell pepper, onion, and snow peas. Aside from my borderline offensive use of “Asian” ingredients coming from a variety of different Asian cultures, this simply didn’t taste good. Maybe I don’t like Chinese five spice? Plus, the noodles all clung together in a soggy mess. I pretty much picked all the snow peas out and ate those, then the rest of it got trashed. Yet another fail.

This reminds me of a time when I was probably 10 or 11 years old and decided to bake cookies while my parents were out one night. I had made this cookie recipe dozens of times with my mom, but in executing it by myself I forgot to add the baking powder and baking soda. The end result was a baking sheet with a melted mess of cookie dough and burnt edges. I remember later crying and writing in my diary melodramatically that “I can’t do anything right.”

I didn’t cry over the disgusting soup or the Thai noodles, but I did take this opportunity to teach Kevin how to properly bake cookies while I was home this weekend. I imparted all my years of wisdom with tips like: “Make sure the beaters of the hand mixer are touching the bottom of the bowl so you don’t fling batter everywhere” and “Don’t just squeeze the egg in your hand, Kevin. Crack it on the counter first.”

I expect he’ll be ready to guest blog any day now.

I’m also using this as proof that I don’t post crappy dishes just for the sake of blogging. You can trust my palate! And my judgment. I think.

Three of my last four meals have been this identical buffalo chicken salad.

I texted this picture to the GS and he responded “You’re an artist.” This is why we’re dating.

I promise a good recipe soon!