Food Waste... Tuesday?

Hmm. I'm a bit late me thinks.

My Food Waste (from last week)
some goats cheese I accidentally bought a long time ago instead of feta. I thought it would work out... definitely was not the same. I kept holding onto it thinking "I'll find a use for it." So when I threw it out it had a nice creative new structure thanks to all the fuzzy mold holding it together in new ways.
I also wasted a roux sauce base that I burnt terribly (I hate the smell of burnt flour). I was more sad about the butter than the flour tho.
I know there was something else I wasted but I can't remember what it was.

I almost wasted a whole butternut squash! I looked down and saw my lovely squash covered in magenta and blue mold (no lie) and I was very upset. But, being thick-skinned towards food spoilage, like the squash itself, I decided it was still safe. So I liberally chopped off the skin and some of the outer portion of the squash and roughly cubed and froze all the tasty meats. I do feel slightly bad as I also didn't save the seeds. I just added it to my compost pile. It was late and I was exhausted and didn't feel like staying up an extra 30 minutes to rinse and roast the seeds.

So, not too bad, and at least I averted a major food waste crisis, but only barely.

Sad Little Squash... Sad Little Me...

Ugh.

I hate it when I am excited about a recipe and I put a lot of effort into it and it turns out like crap. I had this soup recipe from Whole Food's blog about a butternut squash puree soup and it sounded amazing! But when I cooked it all up and dished it out, it was plainer than plain could be. Nothing I did could give it flavor. I added red pepper flakes. Nothing. I added more red pepper flakes. Nothing. I added some random cheese (I bought the wrong kind), and that only made it worse. I tried adding a few olives to my bowl, yuck.

Neither of us could stomach it, although we both tried.

I really don't understand why it was such a failure. The only thing I'm really left with, I think, is using this bland puree soup in a quick-bread or something. I found a recipe for it, but I don't think the puree in the recipe also had things like onions, peppers, and carrots blended in.

That's the part that I really don't understand. I added all these tasty, flavorful veggies, and after pureeing it, all I tasted was a very faintly buttery carrot taste (not in a good way as in, yum, buttery carrots, more as in, ewww, flavorless carrots smeared with flavorless butter). The poblano pepper I added (including seeds)? Not a hint. I can still taste the heat even now on my fingers from chopping it hours earlier, but in the soup you couldn't even tell it was there.

I think next time I make this recipe, I will puree the squash, and leave the veggies intact. Maybe having a different texture to break things up would help. It might also protect the different flavors from getting swallowed up by the squash so much.

Anyway, whenever I have a cooking flop, it always makes me sad. I had grand plans for the chores I was going to get done tonight after dinner and now I just don't know if I feel up to them. I know it's silly, but I hate when a recipe goes awry.

I think I am going to turn this failure into quick-bread tomorrow, but if that also fails I don't know what I'll do. Maybe I'll order chinese food to make up for it. Or make brownies. That's always a safe cooking exploit to boost my confidence (and caffeination) after a failure.

In the mean time, I'm going to go try and find something productive to do (pointedly avoids looking at sink full of dirty dishes)... anything except that.

I Might Have a Small Problem

I think I like food a little too much. I realized it today. I look forward to menu-planning time. I get excited about what new things I will make. I'm eagerly anticipating the Spring when I will start my crazy process of growing my own food on my balcony. While I'm eating one meal, I think about how to use my leftovers for something else new and interesting (or I'll be excited that I'll have leftovers of the same thing to eat again!).

Today, I am dreaming what I will do with the 2lbs of chopped butternut squash I have sitting in my fridge from Monday's cooking adventure. I am also enjoying leftovers from said Monday adventure for my dinner, actually. I really wasn't expecting to like squash this much.

I found some good ideas from Whole Food's blog here. I'm thinking of doing their soup or their not-salad-even-though-it-sounds-and-looks-like-one option they suggested. Honestly I might have to freeze some of because it's just so much food. But after reading how long they can last before you cut them if you leave them in a cool dark place, I am also thinking of buying a few more before the season is over so I have them for a while. It's really high quality food.

I'm thinking I'm going to come up with something really tasty and bring it as a dish to family thanksgiving. This also gives me an excuse to buy more squash. I'm thinking of buying 3 or 4. Is that excessive? 2 for our own consumption, and 2 for thanksgiving cooking (I have 2 families so one for each).