First Fail of the Blog: Turkey Cutlets in Mango Salsa

It was bound to happen sooner or later, the first fail of the blog. I had high hopes for this recipe mostly because the premise of this blog was so good! I discovered "Crockpot365" on Pinterest and it's one of those blogs that makes you want to scream, "Why didn't I think of that?!" This lady is an evil genius and also somewhat of a saint considering she actually used her Crockpot every day for an entire year. I have to say, I was and still am completely impressed by her dedication to her Crockpot craft and she has hundreds of recipes to chose from. She is also honest enough to list what recipes flopped and that's realistic because who, out of an entire year of cooking, doesn't have some failure recipes every once and awhile? I unfortunately have another to add to the list, "Turkey Cutlets in Mango Salsa". I wanted this to be good, it sounded good, even the picture looks good, but the combination of flavors is just completely off. Here's the recipe so you can see for yourself:

See it looks pretty good! Photo from www.crockpot365.blogspot.com

The Ingredients.

--1 lb of turkey breast cutlets. Or pork.

--1 can tomatoes and chiles

--2 mangoes

--2 peaches

--1 T dried minced onion

--1/4 cup water

The Directions.

--peel and chop up the fruit. Mother Nature most certainly had a sense of humor when she developed mangoes. Those things are ridiculously hard to cut.

--in a small bowl, combine the can of tomatoes and chiles with the chopped fruit, water, and dried onion flakes.

--lay the pieces of meat into the bottom of the crock--slightly stagger the pieces so they don't stick together.

--cover with your newly-made salsa

According to the salsa experts you are supposed to use cilantro in salsa to make it "real"---I didn't have any--yet! I'm working on it...

cook on low for 5-8 hours, or on high for 3-4. If you use turkey, it will be a bit tough if you cook it on high.

Pros (because there is always something positive): It is a quick and easy recipe to make and is fairly healthy. Also, and this is a little tangent, I really just like this woman's blog, from her writing to the fact that, her final pictures look like something anyone could make. She doesn't try to make it look perfect, or fancy, and sometimes the pictures don't even make the food look that appetizing, but it does look real. It isn't cooking magazine quality and I love her blog for that. It really is an everyday woman (or man's) kind of foodie blog. 

Cons: It tastes terrible. The combination of the spicy tomatoes and chilies and the acidity of the fruit do not mix. Maybe if you did without the tomatoes and chilies it would have been ok or used something else instead, but something about this recipe was not jiving. It wasn't inedible per say, but did qualify for a "lets order pizza instead" dinner night. The one person who did enjoy it was the dog though, who received most of the failed meal. Her palette is not to be trusted though as this is the same dog that licks gum stuck on the sidewalk and would never turn down a free scrap of food she "isn't supposed to normally receive". Beggar.

Recipe Revisions: Honestly, I'm not sure. I think it's just a bad combination of flavors. If anyone wants to take a stab at it and figure out what could be done to make this recipe contend for a "Foodie Blog Redemption", let me know. I'm not sure if I am brave enough to try this recipe again. I will take a stab at another "Cooking365" recipe in the future though because I cannot believe a blog that creative can have 365 days of terrible recipes.

Confession moment, it doesn't feel great calling out a recipe for sucking, but that's the point of the blog, to show the good as well as the bad, so you don't waste time on an awful recipe the same way I did. There you have it, first grenade dodged.