Food Failure

It's never fun to write a race report on a race that either was a DNF (did not finish) or a bad experience for one reason or another. But what I have learned when it comes to running races is that I ALWAYS learn something valuable from a "bad race experience".

Experimenting with food can result in good food, mediocre food, or bad food. Sometimes the creative juices are really flowing and the result is fantastic. Other times, like last night, I ask myself, why did I do this? What was I thinking? I might even beat myself up about it even though my husband thought it was tasty. I do want to mention, however, that my husband Marty will eat anything that I give him. He may not love it but he is very happy to be fed and loves that I provide healthy dinners for he and Grant. Prior to our marriage, Marty had a freezer full of Hungry Man frozen dinners. Opening up a jar of PREGO sauce and boiling water for pasta was considered "fancy". Poor guy...

Like running a bad race and learning from it, I need to remember the same thing about cooking. The more mistakes that I make, the better I will get.

I will not be writing the recipe with exact measurements to this dish but only list the ingredients. If it was any good, I would be thrilled to provide specifics. But, I do not recommend that anyone try this. I will also note that even though this dish was quite bland, it was extremely healthy:

red lentil beans (this was the big mistake ingredient. didn't taste right with the larger vegetable pieces and pasta)

sliced orange and yellow bell peppers

sliced onions

6 garlic cloves

red pepper flakes

extra virgin olive oil

green onions

parsley

spinach leaves

three small tomatoes

broccoli

large fancy gourmet pasta (very unique shape, can't recall the name)

parm cheese

chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

I saute'd the garlic, onion, and peppers in EVOO with red pepper flakes. After 5-10 minutes, I added chicken stock, red lentil beans...then added spinach leaves, parsley, and green onions. While simmering, I boiled water for both pasta and broccoli. Why I added the broccoli to the mix? I don't know why.

To0 many veggie flavors thrown together in this dish was the problem and adding the lentils just made matters worse. If this was a soup, it would have been tasty. Although, instead of slicing the veggies and adding the large pasta shape, I would have gone with chopped veggies and smaller pasta (not to mention using carrot and celery).

Leftovers for today? Not for me. But I'm sure Marty will eat them :-)