Cooking Fail: Cozy Autumn Soup Edition
Lately we’ve been eating a lot of farm fresh food. It’s occasionally exhilarating. We are really lucky to have access to so much local produce through our farm co-op and it has been an incredible learning experience to see how things are grown and discover new ways to cook and preserve the things we’ve been able to harvest.
Unfortunately, it also means we have eaten more zucchini, in more permutations, than I ever thought possible. If I never see another zucchini again, I’ll be fine. Too bad we’ve got five on our counter right now.
Anyway, I was excited when the butternut squash was ready. A welcome change of pace, I dove into making a delicious pureed soup the first time we brought it home. It was tasty, tasty stuff, and everyone called for an encore.
The second time around, a week or two later, I went all out and used 5 or 6 butternut squashes and made two enormous stockpots worth of soup. My confidence was buoyed by my previous success, so I experimented a little and added a few minor secret ingredients. Exhausted and sweaty after a few hours of intense soup-making, with a sore arm from all of the pureeing (holding an immersion blender for so long really takes a toll), I finally sat down to eat.
I took a bite and something was… off.
“Hmmm, this is... good. Did you do something different this time?” Sara asked.
“Um, yeah.” I was worried.
Reviews were mixed, but I knew I didn’t like it as well as the first version. The poor babies started crying when we put it in their mouths – and Miette will eat almost anything these days (including flying beetles, true story).
A few days later I tried to have the leftovers for lunch and almost gagged. I just couldn’t do it. Sara admitted it was too much for her, too, but Jesse is a special man, and not wanting any food to go to waste, he chose to finish off the last of it.
As we all discussed the problem, I was informed in a not-condescending, not-attempting-to-be-humorous way, exactly how bad the soup tasted. With a hearty “Let’s use the scientific method and our five senses to figure out what’s wrong!” approach, it was determined that, in fact, there was a certain, unmistakable urine-inspired flavor to it.
A word to the wise: if a discussion of the meal you’ve made runs anywhere along the lines of, “Hmm, this is weird. Oh! Tastes too much like pee, that must be it!” you have failed. Plain and simple.
Unfortunately, it also means we have eaten more zucchini, in more permutations, than I ever thought possible. If I never see another zucchini again, I’ll be fine. Too bad we’ve got five on our counter right now.
Anyway, I was excited when the butternut squash was ready. A welcome change of pace, I dove into making a delicious pureed soup the first time we brought it home. It was tasty, tasty stuff, and everyone called for an encore.
The second time around, a week or two later, I went all out and used 5 or 6 butternut squashes and made two enormous stockpots worth of soup. My confidence was buoyed by my previous success, so I experimented a little and added a few minor secret ingredients. Exhausted and sweaty after a few hours of intense soup-making, with a sore arm from all of the pureeing (holding an immersion blender for so long really takes a toll), I finally sat down to eat.
I took a bite and something was… off.
“Hmmm, this is... good. Did you do something different this time?” Sara asked.
“Um, yeah.” I was worried.
Reviews were mixed, but I knew I didn’t like it as well as the first version. The poor babies started crying when we put it in their mouths – and Miette will eat almost anything these days (including flying beetles, true story).
A few days later I tried to have the leftovers for lunch and almost gagged. I just couldn’t do it. Sara admitted it was too much for her, too, but Jesse is a special man, and not wanting any food to go to waste, he chose to finish off the last of it.
As we all discussed the problem, I was informed in a not-condescending, not-attempting-to-be-humorous way, exactly how bad the soup tasted. With a hearty “Let’s use the scientific method and our five senses to figure out what’s wrong!” approach, it was determined that, in fact, there was a certain, unmistakable urine-inspired flavor to it.
A word to the wise: if a discussion of the meal you’ve made runs anywhere along the lines of, “Hmm, this is weird. Oh! Tastes too much like pee, that must be it!” you have failed. Plain and simple.
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