I am a pretty terrible awesome cook

I am a good cook. okay, I am basing that entirely on my own personal opinion. It is entirely possible that my cooking is awful (I have had a few roommates in days past who sad good things, I had a couple proposals of marriage by complete strangers for my black forest cake. So, it probably isn't awful...), But I really like it and that's what really matters, right?

Anywho, there is one big problem with my cooking though. I have a bad habit of hacking when I cook (I mean the old definiton, before it got stolen by the media to mean computer criminal. I mean fiddling with things, making little tweaks here and there, to see what will happen, to see if an improvement can be made). But I don't keep notes.

Example: Last fall, as I was snapping green beans from the garden, I had a nostalgic memory of pickled beans. So I decided, "Hey, I'm gonna make some." I had no idea how to make them, so I went googling for recipes. I found quite a few, but as I read through them, none of them really sounded quite right. So I picked a couple that sounded sorta interesting and merged them. Sort of. I also fiddled a bit with ratio's on a few of the ingredients.

The end result.... was.... a....MAZING! Six pints of pickle-beany-bliss! And then they were gone! And I had NO IDEA WHAT I DID! YAARGH!


This was not an isolated incident. A few months later I pulled a similar number making spaghetti sauce. I started with a recipe I found that sounded good. but then changed a bunch of things that didn't sound that good, and added a bunch of other things. Divine! Gone! Unrepeatable.

Before that it was Salsa. That one I just completely made up. I know there were poblano's. They were the reason I decied to  make salsa. We got a bunch from Bountiful Baskets. Tomatoes obviously. Garlic, salt, lime, a little cilantro. a couple jalapenos. The end result wasn't exactly awesome. It was too mild. But the flavor profile was very promising. Just a little more heat and maybe... But, I don't remember the ratios, or what else was in there. So...


Last week I did it again with pickled beets.

You think I'd learn after a while.

*Sigh*