Do not try this at home

As much as I wish there were always good news from the Blushing kitchen, there have to be misses. While a beautiful, award winning, fanciful food blog was the goal here, the food does not always cooperate. You know, there are duds. Which is so disappointing because I don't cook or bake anything that I am not so looking forward to eating. But these were just unfortunate culinary incidents. Accidents, even.

Oh, Martha Stewart Living's recipe for Pears Roasted in Salt with Caramel Sauce which wasted my gorgeous, hard to come by, French butter pears. The skins became darkened and bitter. The salt was overwhelming and the caramel sauce made neither sauce nor caramel. I had to resort to an old Gourmet caramel which is very lovely but could not go toe to toe with these petrified, hideous pears. Having done this twice with good sense as a guide where I knew there were method issues, I will not be recreating the disaster a third time.

And then, a begrudgingly tasty but pointless recipe for Milk Braised and Roasted Shallots from Patricia Wells which required a pile of unpeeled shallots to be braised gently in milk and then roasted in a casserole for 35 minutes. This left tiny slivers of tasty shallot inside but seemingly endless layers of tough skin to be discarded in order to get to this miserly bite of roasted shallot. It was, in these time, when no one can tolerate such a thing, a gross waste of fine ingredients which were carefully selected, organic, and delicious all on their own. Fine idea, perhaps the same idea will work better once the shallots are unpeeled and roasted over lower heat. Here is a picture, to prove they were irreperably hideous from every angle as well as inside and out.

It happens. I mean this happens, even with a Wells recipe:

I mean, seriously. Would you want to eat this? No wonder it wasn't photographed for her book...