I'm experimenting. Tinkering - well, maybe tampering -with two tried and true recipes.
I've written about my past experiences "tweaking" recipes only to discover that the outcomes were less than palatable. I've also written that substituting low-fat or fat-free ingredients for the "real thing" is a hit and miss proposition and the outcome is like a culinary Las Vegas game of chance. But, here I am today substituting and tinkering.
This probably isn't be best idea because earlier this morning luck was not running in my favor. I stopped at my favorite bakery, a local Great Harvest Bread Co., only to discover that the store's debit and credit machines were not working. Ironically, a sign posted on the door said only cash and checks were being accepted even though they have a strict no-checks-accepted policy as a rule. Fortunately I had a little cash tucked away. Then, needing some cash, I drove to my bank's headquarters, only to discover that the ATM machine was not working properly......after I'd used my card, my personal identification number, entered the desired amount of cash, and the machine had flashed, "please wait......". After too many minutes had passed and then screen then flashed "thank you", I grabbed my cell phone and called the bank, telling the person who answered the phone about my predicament and also telling him that I was not moving away from the camera until he assured me that the problem could be rectified inside and that they would believe me. Yes, the problem was rectified to my satisfaction.
Which brings me back to the wisdom of testing the universe yet one more time today, which I have now done - twice. Instead of making the Three Musketeers' favorite red and green cookies, I have changed the food coloring to make yellow and orange cookies, in the spirit of autumn and Halloween. Twill be interesting to see if the change in coloration influences their minds enough to convince themselves that the cookies will taste different. The second testing-of-the-universe has to do with my family's all-time favorite lasagna recipe. I am making two pans - one as usual to take down to the Three Musketeers and their parents and in the other pan I am substituting Italian-spiced ground turkey meat instead of the customary Italian sausage for Capt. SO and I to enjoy here at home. I tried a bit of the ground turkey and the taste was OK but the color was not-so-appealing. I can only say that it "twill be interesting". Our pan of lasagna may fall into the category of "never again".
This could go either way. Success or "yuck".
Ancora imparo
