I swear all ingredients were edible 😬

Don't Pinterest whilst hungry

[foodiefails]

Perfect pavlova

The goblin ate all the Mars bars in the house so I’m going to tell you about a better time. A time where I had both pavlova and Mars bars...

- so last week - 

For a bit of context we have a “fancy” oven. Picture little English country cottage or super fancy house where there is one aesthetic oven that only runs in winter and one practical more normal one. I love it but it has its quirks when it come to cooking. The main thing being it is always running. No preheat needed like...ever.

So that based on this (and the fact that Mary Berry didn’t put a recipe in the wonder Aga book) I have always pretended I couldn’t make them.

And then mum went and joined and oven Facebook group (I said our oven was fancy already right?) and sent me a recipe. No excuse now.

I’m going to be honest this recipe WORKS which was super exciting but someone can’t do basic maths. Cooking time: 45 minutes. Actual time: 5 minutes and oven oven and 30 minutes and the bottom oven, followed by at least 45 minutes drying on top of the oven before you can do anything to it. 5+30+45 = 120 minutes almost double the predicted time (don’t worry I read ahead and was prepared).

So super clean bowl, egg whites,--> stiff peaks (hold above head and pray), sugar (a teaspoon at a time is SO SLOW), cornflour and vinegar (weird but I’ve never made pavlova before so ok) and then onto the weirdly specific tray that I later discover is just so the website can sell more trays (oops).

Cook for forever

Realise I have no cream but use yoghurt (which surprisingly works!) with my passion fruit.

And that’s the story of perfect pavlova.

I’m still out of Mars bars though....

[foodiefails]

Wobbly Potatoes

Broccoli and Cheddar twice baked Potatoes

Note to self: Never bake potatoes from scratch. Nobody actually has time for that.

This recipe has been saved on my phone for weeks! I found it even before the very weird ‘chilli dog bake’ (the last we shall ever speak its name) and the Italian rice thingo (that has been dubbed lazy risotto) but it looked too much like a side dish for me to ever commit.

I should have known when I read the total time (1 hour 50 minutes) that it was going to be an ordeal but never the less I entered the kitchen 2 hours earlier than usual and began on my journey.

First step was to bake the potatoes. Now, in the household we do not just bake potatoes - we cheat, we microwave or pre-boil just to get the show on the road but this time because the recipe told me too, I put the potatoes in the oven (harder than planned because those bastards roll away) and sat down to play animal crossing for the hour before getting up when I realised the broccoli had to be cooked prior to stuffing (?) and then realising that someone had eaten most of the broccoli so substituted in cauliflower because they’re essentially the same. Right?

Fun fact; an hour is not quite enough time for a potato and gutting potatoes is actually really hard.

So now I have a bowl full of almost baked potato which just looks like it wont really mash and hungry people that are really hoping this show gets on the road now.

Now I can’t say that the next decision I made was wise but in my defence I misread the instructions and thought that they actually suggested  I use the stick blender to mash the potato but it turns out that potato goes sticky?

Persisting I add the broccoli that’s mostly cauliflower (why? I can’t remember the point by now) and spices and put the glug back into skins with a shitload of cheese and bluff confidence to people whilst fighting to get the fuckers to stay upright and not burn my hands. Who knew potatoes where round right?

And what can I say it almost worked? Pull them out and they at least have enough cheesiness to cover any obvious flaws.

There are some major problems with this recipe; the first being that potatoes take absolutely FOREVER to cook in the oven so that if you’re in any way pressed for time your going to end up with some lumps and some chew in the finaly product but hey, if you have a spare afternoon for something that’s not quite enough by itself sure!

Hit this bad boy up and good luck!

Now off to clean the potato clag out of my stick mixer...