When Bad Guacamole Happens to Good People

In my never ending quest to find quick and easy recipes during the work week, I thought to myself, "What could be simpler than finding a great sandwich and pairing that with soup or a hearty salad?" Famous last words.

After what felt like hours of chopping, mincing, food processor-ing (?) and a disaster of a kitchen, I was left with an inedible, funky, ridiculously overpowering onion tasting guacamole grilled cheese sandwich. Luckily for me I always have spare Eggo's on hand, so breakfast for dinner it was last night.

This recipe comes from "Two Peas & Their Pod", a husband and wife blog sharing their culinary creations with the world. I found the actual recipe for the "Guacamole Grilled Cheese Sandwich" on Pinterest and in the time it took to toast my waffle, an arduous task, I think I figured out what went wrong and who the culprit was, caught green handed. Here is the recipe:

Theirs. Everything looks better in rack focus. Photo from www.twopeasandtheirpod.com

Mine cooking away. 

Guacamole Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Yield: 2 sandwiches

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 5-7 minutes

The guacamole takes this grilled cheese sandwich to a whole new level of goodness.

ingredients:

To make the guacamole:
2 ripe avocados
1/2 small onion, minced  (WARNING: This is where the recipe went wrong. Too. Much. Onion)
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small jalapeño, stems and seeds removed, minced
2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
A dash of freshly grated black pepper
1 Roma tomato, chopped

4 slices crusty white bread
4 slices Cheddar cheese
Butter, for buttering bread

directions:

1. To make the guacamole-cut avocados in half. Remove seed. Scoop out avocado from the peel, put in a large bowl. Using a fork, mash the avocado. Add the onion, garlic, jalapeño, cilantro, lime juice, salt and pepper. Stir until well combined. Add the chopped tomato and stir.

This recipe is so frustrating! Luckily I had my
brother to do the mashing of the avocado for me. 

2. Heat a pan or griddle to medium-high heat. Spread desired amount of guacamole on both slices of bread then top with cheese. Butter outer slices of bread and grill on one side for about 2 minutes or until golden and crispy. Flip the sandwich and grill until golden brown. Make the other sandwich the same way and serve warm.

Uhhh I can taste the onion through this picture. 

Pros: From a comical standpoint, it was hysterical to watch my husband and brother's reaction to the sandwiches as they both took huge bites, masticated for a second or two, and proceeded to spit it back out. The sandwiches quickly turned into a game of who would try the biggest bite and who was brave enough to try and peel off the bread and cheese portion of the sandwich without touching the guacamole.

Cons: Let's start from the top. For starters, 5 minutes of prep time? You have got to be kidding me. It was more like 45 minutes of prep time. I'd like to meet the person who can single handily chop, peel, dice, remove seeds, and mince all of those ingredients in 5 minutes. 

My next issue was the guacamole. Had I reviewed the recipe more in depth, I think I would have foregone their guacamole and just made the kind I like instead. My favorite has to be "Mock-a-mole" by Bethanny Frankel. Not only is it delicious, but it's a lot better for you than regular guacamole (less avocado). Their guacamole recipe really isn't anything out of this world and the onion was way too overpowering. You literally couldn't taste anything but onion. Honestly, I could have eaten a raw onion and had the same effect (and it would have taken less time to make). Granted I did double the recipe, so I will take the blame for some amount of human error, but I think even made exactly as stated, the onion would have still overpowered the sandwich. I think that they would have been better off measuring out the onion and letting the reader know exact measurements of how much onion they used because I doubt it was supposed to taste like pure rancid onion.

Revisions: This isn't a complex, mind boggling, recipe, the idea is good it just doesn't pan out well in practice. I would try this recipe again, but probably make the guacamole I already know is fantastic and then follow the recipe from there.  In fact, I really wouldn't need the recipe at all after that point, it's just guacamole and cheese on bread. So, I have to give "Two Peas and Their Pod" credit for a good idea and a fresh new way to do Grilled Cheese, but this is not a recipe I will venture to try again. 

It goes without saying this is a "Hall of Shame" recipient. 

First Hall of Shame Dessert...Le Sigh

It was inevitable. Eventually a dessert was going to have to bomb, I just really wish it didn't happen when my grandparents were in town. This dessert disaster, a Chocolate Truffle S'mores Tart, comes from "Lauren's Latest", which is a blog that I really do love, so I was surprised that this recipe was such a mess. I've featured a recipe from her before on this blog, her Mini-Mint Truffle Brownie Bites were scrumptious, but oddly enough while the downside of that recipe was that the brownies stuck to the muffin liners, the main problem with this recipe was that I couldn't get the crust to stick together. And if your foundation isn't stable, the whole cookie (or in this case tart) crumbles.

Let me say, in her defense, it wasn't quite a straight forward fail, it tasted great, but it just wasn't worth the time and energy spent making this dessert. I could have easily slapped a piece of chocolate, marshmallows, and graham crackers together, nuked them up, and thrown them in a bowl with some vanilla ice cream and I would have gotten a similar result. As you will soon see, my final product did not resemble a tart of any kind, more of a heaping mess of chocolate, marshmallow and sugar (which really, if you're going to have a mess, it might as well be of the tasty sort). Also, a majority of it ended up on my floor, which led to me continuously cleaning from the mess the flipping unstable graham cracker crust created. Here is the recipe, so that maybe we can figure out what went wrong:

Hers. Now doesn't that just look delightful!? Photo from http://www.laurenslatest.com/

Mine. Oh wow it looks nothing like the photo!

Chocolate Truffle S’more Tarts
yield: 4 tarts, 4-6 servings

(*I actually made it in one 10 in tart pan, which I asked the author about, and she said it was just fine to make it that way. Really it should make no difference, just wanted to point out that change).

Ingredients:
for the crust-
1 sleeve graham crackers, finely ground
4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons granulated sugar

for the filling-
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 cup heavy cream
pinch of salt
2 egg yolks
2/3 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups mini marshmallows

Directions:
In a small bowl, mix all ingredients for the crust until completely moistened. Divide evenly between 4 individual tart pans and press in. Place into the freezer while you make the filling.

Crust mixture.

Crust pre freezer. Didn't look sturdy enough even here, but I thought the freezer
work work some magic. It didn't.

For the filling, stir sugar and salt into cream in the top of a double boiler. {A heat-proof bowl over lightly simmering water works just fine!} (*No it really doesn't)


My super fab, homemade double broiler.



Stir occasionally to heat cream thoroughly and dissolve sugar, about 7 minutes or so. (*And by or so, in my case, it was some insane numerical amount like 15-20 minutes).

Temper egg yolks with hot cream and mix. Pour that mixture into the double boiler and stir frequently for 10-12 minutes so the mixture can thicken. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips and vanilla extract. Stir until chocolate has melted and filling is a smooth and uniform consistency. Pour into tart shells evenly and sit out at room temperature. {Because the shells were in the freezer, this should take 30 minutes or so.} Place plastic wrap directly onto the filling of the tarts and refrigerate at least 2 hours or until the filling has set. {You should be able to remove the plastic wrap cleanly–with no filling on it.} Store in refrigerator until ready to serve.



Right before going in the fridge. At this point I knew I was doomed
to fail.



When ready to serve, remove tarts from fridge. Top with 1/2 cup mini marshmallows each and torch the top to toast. {Or stick them under a hot broiler for a few seconds.} Serve immediately.

Torching by candle light. haha

The last time this dessert would remain in tart form.
30 seconds later the first cut caused it to crumble.

After its makeover. More of a ice cream tart mush.

Pros: As I said before, it really is a tasty little treat. The flavors are all there, it just didn't stay in tart form as promised.

Cons: I am going to break this up into three points: the dessert itself, the recipe, and the tools required.

The Dessert Itself: The crust did not stick together at ALL. It was a crumbly hot mess. Also, as I said before, while it was delicious, so is anything including chocolate, sugar, and marshmallow with a side of vanilla ice cream. I just could have done it in 30 seconds and saved my floor from continuous scrubbing.



The Recipe: I am the kind of person that needs to be spoken to like a toddler when following a recipe. How heated do you want the cream and sugar mixture? Like burn my finger hot or this would make a nice bath hot? How slow should I pour the mixture onto the eggs? What the heck does temper mean?! And how tempered would you like these eggs? I don't want to Wikipedia while trying to follow a recipe. I think it's best to assume when posting a recipe that a majority of your readers were not in the "Gifted and Talented" program and therefore could use a very thorough breakdown of the recipe, even if it seems obvious to the writer. Remember, we can't all be Martha Stewart. Some of us aren't even close.



The Tools Needed: I do not have a double broiler and I have done recipes before where I have made my own jenky broiler and in other cases it has worked out just fine, not so much in this case. I don't think the breakdown of minutes or how hot you are supposed to get the broiler worked if you were making your own with a sauce pan and a heat proof bowl. I had to continually turn the heat up and down to try and mimic what she was able to do with a real broiler. It just didn't work and took twice the time.

Revisions: I think the crust was lacking more ingredients that would help it stick together. Potentially more butter or milk, something like that, would have helped the graham cracker mold into a more stable tart crust. I truly believe that had the crust held up and if I had a real broiler, this recipe could have been a success.

While I love "Lauren's Latest", this was a definite Hall of Shame recipe for me. The taste was there, but if it takes twice the time to make and doesn't even end up resembling the recipe it was based on, than it's not worth it in my book. If I am going to spend time and energy on a recipe, I want it to be spectacular; I want the end to justify the means. This just didn't do it for me.

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.