The Uncut Version

It's been one of those weeks. At least in my kitchen. How many times have you tried a new recipe to have your family and friends tell you that it didn't make the cut? Or maybe they have nicely said, "It's not one of your best dishes..."

The truth behind blogging is that for every one dish that makes it on these pages, sometimes it takes three or four recipes to find the one that is worthy to share.

That's the problem with having standards. It means that everything has to meet a certain criteria. It is healthy? Is it delicious? Is it fairly easy to make? Do David and I both like it and deem it "blog-worthy?"

Rather than skip a week of blogging a recipe, I thought I would share what really happens behind-The-Cowgirl-Gourmet-scenes, so you can judge for yourself the recipes that I made that did not make the cut.

First, it was a cantaloupe soup. I brought home a lovely and generously sized cantaloupe from Kubena Farms. These locally-grown cantaloupes are literally as big as Texas.

With blazing, triple digit temps in San Antonio, I was certain this cold melon soup would make us swoon and leave us feeling healthy and fit.

Though it looked gorgeous, it was not what I wanted or hoped it would be. The "soup" ended up being quite frothy as opposed to gazpacho-like substance and David thought the cinnamon was a bit overpowering. So we scratched that idea.

Next, I decided to do something different with the Japanese eggplant I had, so I called a fabulous foodie friend who loves Japanese eggplant with Thai basil and asked her to share her recipe.

As much as I really wanted to love this dish, I couldn't. Was it the fact that the recipe called for adding a cup of water to the stir fry pan to "cook" the eggplant or perhaps the fish sauce? Did I not add enough fresh Thai basil or too much? I am not sure, but I ended up throwing this dish away. Along with the recipe.

Finally, with a very productive mint plant on my hands and a neighbor who loves "anything mint," I decided to make coconut milk mint chocolate chip ice cream for him.

Using two cans of organic coconut milk, two egg yolks, half cup of coconut sugar and a cup of fresh mint leaves, this mixture steeped for half an hour after boiling briefly. I chilled it overnight and made ice cream the next morning.

I tossed in a half cup of mini chocolate chips during the last few minutes of churning and, though it is nice, it's nothing spectacular. David said, "It's not my favorite" and ate a small serving just to be nice. For once, he was happy that I gave food away...

Later he pondered out loud, "What's wrong? You keep making these uninspired dishes?"

It was then when we recounted the "flops" and he even came up with two additional screw-ups not mentioned above. I threw away a dessert, which never happens. I also cooked up a greasy breakfast in pork fat that he did not approve of. So there. Those are all of my five recent kitchen failures, three of which I had hoped would be blog worthy. But not even one made it.

Sometimes, that is exactly what it is. Uninspired failures. David nailed it. It's hot. I'm tired of the heat and it hasn't even been a hot summer, for Texas standards.

The next time you make a dish that is uninspired or doesn't meet your standards, throw it away if you have to, but just keep doing it because the odds are something is going to stick.

Buen provecho!