Lately I’ve been getting bored with my stand-by meals. I’m sure most people have them, the things they both like to cook and eat. The things the family likes, the things that are easy, use ingredients at hand, and can be whipped up in no time at all. Well sometimes I feel that that’s all I’ve been cooking and I feel the need to try something new. Often these new additions work well, and occasionally they even become a stand-by meal in their own right. Sometimes though they go badly, sometimes very badly indeed but more often they are just not quite right. This dish is a case in point:
Looks nice enough doesn’t it?
Well it wasn’t horrible but if I’m truthful it wasn’t very good either.
What is it I hear you ask?
Well, it’s a spiced potato & cauliflower soup, or aloo gobi soup if you will. Frankly I wouldn’t because it just isn’t worth it. In theory it should taste ok, potato & cauliflower have been cooked together for centuries. Both are often made into soups, both marry well with spices so what went wrong? Perhaps it was me but the result was just a bit of a blah gluggy mess. I ate it – a lot of added greek yoghurt and chilli helped but would I make it again?…errr no. So this week I wont share a recipe, more of a warning – potato & cauliflower soup might be nice but when you make it as you would a curry, add lots of stock and then puree there’s just something a bit wrong…perhaps it was the spicing…
I’m sharing this cautionary tale on The Gardener of Eden’s Thursday Kitchen Cupboard , and Greenish Thumb’s Garden to Table.
It looks inviting, shame the taste wasn’t up to par. I don’t really make soups, none of the family are soup lovers.
Isn’t that interesting – we are a soup family but the trouble is we can’t seem to agree on which soup. The kids favour S.E Asian noodle soups (they love salty flavours), I like spicy pumpkin or roast vegetable soups and my partner favours things like pea and ham. Usually the kids get their way because they moan the loudest though.
My experimental meals are really hit and miss. I’ve made a lot of mediocre soups in the past. But then the good ones are worth the effort of the trials.
You’re absolutely right and I fully intend to make a lovely batch of pumpkin soup with a tried and tested recipe tomorrow and eat it all!
What a shame – it looks so good. I’ve made more than my share of terrible soups over the years, guess you can’t win ’em all!
Soups is harder than you think isn’t it? – I tried to salvage some pumpkin gnocchi recently which disintegrated into the water I was boiling it by turning it into to soup – that was worse than the Aloo gobi effort.
The most disappointing thing no doubt was that if you had just left it as aloo gobi it would probably have been fine.
Ah so true – I believe the saying “if it aint broke don’t fix it” sprang to mind…
I had always eaten aloo gobhi in chunks or used cauliflower to thicken my soup. Never tried this way may be because my family does not like potatoes.
I think there is a reason why it generally eaten in chunk form and I for one will not be attempting anything else in the near future.
Shame your family don’t like potatoes though.
Bummer! The idea was great, it looks fab, it just happens sometimes to us all.
And they do say we learn more from our mistakes than our success don’t they….or is that just what people said to me to try and make me more comfortable with all the mistakes????
Ha! Thanks for sharing. It’s nice to read “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” about home cooking adventures.
I think over confidence got the better of me – I’ve had a few successees of late and they clearly went to my head.
We all have failed cooking experiments from time to time. It really looks good though.
Ah how true, and it did look good – oh well, it certainly wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever cooked – but a long way from the best as well.
YOu have to love those experiments. I do it a lot, why use a recipe, those words, my husbands hates. I did once make an absolutely wonderful chicken noodle dish, but alas never wrote it down, so could never make it again. YOu are right it does look like it should taste wonderful.
Thats so annoying when you lose a great recipe, I have done that many times in the past and then get very annoyed when my attempts at recreating it fail.
Oooo, makes me want to try it, lol! Had a similar experience with an attempt to re-create a tomato and coconut dish I made once. I loved it when it was tomatoes slowly cooked in a rich, spicy coconut sauce, but I either forgot or added something very crucial and it was incredibly blaugh. Copious amounts of chili sauce gave it a bit of much needed chutzpah, but I’ve still not recovered enough to try again.
Go on try it and then you can tell me what I did wrong…on the other hand perhaps not because this dish may just not be meant to be…
We have a lot of those quick recipes since we both get home at supper time. From time to time I find a good recipe but it gets lost again because I don’t get a chance to make it again. I can think of several right now that we love but take more work than I want to put into them ..after work.
I tend to be a bit careful about trying new things too. I tend to use the same things that I know we like and using them in a different way. I guess I am not very adventurous but I am getting better these days…I think.
I lose recipes all the time too – although I must say blogging about them does help my recall…