So it's common knowledge that no one is perfect, but despite knowing this it never ceases to surprise me when I find myself in the kitchen, near tears at a ridiculous mistake I've made, trying to figure out how to clean it up or fix it. Sometimes we can eat our mistakes, and sometimes we can't. Sometimes our friends eat our mistakes and smile anyway, and sometimes they can't.
The pain of this particular fiasco has worn off enough to finally tell the story, so here you are: my funniest and most tragic kitchen mistake, to date (of course there's always next year), documented for your amusement.
I should start by explaining that elaborate anniversary cooking began with a fiasco and so at this point, it's really more like tradition. The growth lies in the fact that this year... well, I won't spoil the story for you. Anyway, the first night I ever cooked dinner for my now boyfriend (then close friend), a little over a year ago, I made him cheese and bean enchiladas. A seemingly simple recipe from one of my new vegan cookbooks, I made them with two kinds of vegan "cheese" (which wasn't very good back then) and corn tortillas.
It being one of my first vegan recipes, and my very first enchilada dish ever, I struggled to get everything together as we chatted in the kitchen. My apprehension at cooking for this particular guest did not help the situation at all. The end result of this was that I unknowingly focused on the fake cheese and made it a main ingredient (huge mistake in vegan cooking), I used small corn tortillas (which do not stay together or get soft enough when cooked), and I drowned the entire dish in enchilada sauce, not knowing you didn't necessarily have to use it ALL. Adam politely ate enchilada soup with fake cheese and bits of corn tortilla floating around in it. Somehow I seduced him that night anyway, but that is quite a different story and it has very little to do with cooking.
So last month he and I celebrated a year together and my gift to him was a home-cooked, candle-lit meal. This year I had a year of vegan cooking experience behind me, and a much better cookbook. I also developed cooking time-management skills, so I had three of the pertinent items for this elaborate meal already finished and waiting by the time he arrived to take up his traditional kitchen seat (where he keeps me company when I don't ask for a sous chef). With many vegan successes behind me I had total confidence in the outcome of this evening, and even had ingredients for a plan B recipe, should something go horribly wrong.
The recipe for the evening was a Butternut Squash Hummus White Lasagna from
500 Vegan Recipes. This elaborate dish called for the making of my very own vegan cheese loaf, as well as a batch of my own home-made curried butternut squash hummus. For dessert I had planned a Chocolate Cheesecake Pie (also from
500 Vegan Recipes), and was just taking my sheet of home-made cinnamon graham cookie out of the oven to crumble into the crust. The house smelled wonderful, candles and place settings already adorned the table, and I was so prepared.
The recipe for "nutty cheese" (p. 88,
500 Vegan Recipes) was a new experience for me, having never made my own cheese of any kind before. It called for the boiling of a whole bag of
agar flakes (a vegan gelatin substitute made from seaweed), mixed with cashew powder (I ground raw cashews in my food processor), oil, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, and garlic and onion powder. I had no idea what agar was until I went to my local health food store, but I gave it my best try and I have to say that the "cheese" recipe was unbelievably easy and SO MUCH tastier than any store bought vegan fake cheese. Win.
Moving on to the curried butternut squash hummus (p. 83 of
500 Vegan Recipes), I also made my very first batch of hummus. I cut up the raw squash, brushed the flesh with oil and roasted it with salt and pepper, flesh side down, for 45 minutes beforehand. After that it was easy, just blend together the squash, chickpeas (garbanzo beans), a clove of grated garlic, oil, tahini, lemon juice, lots of curry powder, salt, pepper and cumin and voila: hummus. Adam enjoyed eating the first half of the hummus recipe with chips as we chatted and I cooked, since my lasagna only called for half of the recipe.
For the Chocolate Cheesecake Pie (p. 402 of
500 Vegan Recipes), I baked my very own rolled out cinnamon graham cookie, and crumbled it fresh out of the oven with some canola oil for a graham cracker crust that I pressed firmly into the pie pan. The center of the pie was filled with smoothly blended melted chocolate and Earth Balance (mixed and heated in a double boiler), cream cheese (Tofutti), tofu, cocoa powder, maple syrup, sugar, salt and vanilla. I popped it in the oven first while I prepared the lasagna so that it could cool while we ate our meal.
The last thing I had to prepare for the lasagna was a bechamel sauce, another first. I know you're waiting for something to go wrong at this point, but the sauce was perfect. Fragrant Earth Balance and garlic wafted from the pan, I mixed nutmeg, paprika, salt, pepper, stirred in the flour, whisked in the soy creamer, and a smooth and creamy sauce resulted.
Here is where I missed an important step. I began layering the lasagna into a pottery casserole dish-- a little sauce, a layer of pasta noodles, a layer of hummus, a layer of the delicious nutty cheese, repeat, repeat again, and finished the final layer with cheese and one last dollop of sauce. I popped the whole thing in the oven, ridiculously proud of myself, just as I pulled out the perfect chocolate pie and set it out to cool on the counter.
I started mixing pasta dough from semolina flour for a Pumpkin Spinach Ravioli recipe (p. 175 of 500 Vegan Recipes), so confident that I thought, why not just make these too? Everything is done, I have nothing but time, so I'll offer a variety and just eat the leftovers next week. It wasn't until the timer went off for the lasagna and I already had the spinach, pumpkin and cream cheese in the blender to fill the raviolis that I realized what had gone wrong.
As I pulled the lasagna out of the oven, I saw that everything had cooked perfectly... except for the completely raw lasagna noodles!! Having never cooked lasagna before, I never thought to cook them before layering my dish, so buried in each of my perfect lasagna layers was 4 raw noodles that were nowhere near being cooked enough to eat. I came quite close to a complete state of panic-- all that work, a whole day of shopping and cooking the separate parts, wasted, inedible, and nothing for our romantic dinner except dessert and half-finished, unimpressive ravioli.
Luckily, Adam suggested I scrape off each layer, cook all the noodles, and re-layer the whole thing, just cooking it for a few moments more since the noodles would already be done. I was horrified at this prospect but since it was more appealing than dumping the entire dish in the trash, I slowly began scraping the hummus and melted cheese off of each noodle and dropping the noodles into a pot of boiling water, covered in sauce and all. When it seemed like the noodles were done, I calmly re-layered them, leaving the sauce already in the bottom of the dish, and just spreading noodles messily with cheesy hummus spread over them, repeated until all the noodles were gone.
I put it in the oven and went back to work on the raviolis, convinced it would be terrible and determined to have something ready instead. But I was so disappointed and distracted that I never strained the frozen spinach or finished thawing it, so the filling was far too watery when I blended it (more cream cheese and much less and much drier spinach next time), and though the pasta rolled out well and I cut it into perfect hearts, home-made ravioli always seems to have incredibly thick, lumpy noodles and not enough filling. I boiled the raviolis and dutifully made the Garlic and Sage Cashew Cream Sauce (p. 296 of
500 Vegan Recipes), but distractedly I put in far too much Earth Balance and so it didn't mix into a smooth cream sauce, but rather a lumpy and oily (yet tasty) sauce.
Well, I won't keep you in suspense. The horrible mess of a lasagna that I saved from the depths of failure was, we both agree, the best lasagna we've ever had. As we sat by the candle light, scooping raviolis onto our plates and I stared dejectedly at the lasagna dish, afraid to try it, Adam scooped some onto his plate to be a good sport. I don't think I'll ever forget the way his eyes closed in bliss and then so quickly opened in surprise!! I had to try it to see if he was just kidding around, but when I tasted it I had to agree-- it was exceptional. The raviolis, not so much, but they were a product of distraction so I don't 100% blame the recipe for that one.
The chocolate pie was also fantastic, and I'm actually making it tomorrow for a dinner party with friends! The moral of the story? Don't be afraid to renegotiate your standards of perfection halfway through cooking a meal. If you did something wrong, try to save it! Food still tastes good even when it doesn't look perfect, and while you sometimes might have to do a little extra work to avoid losing the whole meal, perseverance can really pay off.
I think perseverance, flexibility, open-mindedness, and compassion always pay off, no matter what you're doing. Don't give up, be willing to change your mind, roll with the punches, and be kind to yourself when you royally screw up.
Oh, and try to keep someone like Adam around when you're cooking-- there's no price tag on a hug when you need one, a good suggestion when you're lost, patience when you're out of sorts, and the confidence to pick up a fork and taste your mess no matter what it looks like! I hope I get to screw up dinner for him again next year-- I don't know what I did to deserve a guy like that. Happy Anniversary, darling.
