Learning Experiences!

Lately, I feel my cooking skills have regressed back to when I was learning to cook in High School.  I have had a couple of frustrating experiences this week:

So, I was excited that David's co-worker was coming to dinner on Monday evening.  On Sunday, I had decided to make Chicken Parmagiana for her and decided to make the sauce on Sunday, so I would not have to do too much on Monday!  Well, that did not work.  I made the sauce on Sunday and it smelled heavenly in the house, I was getting excited about Monday night and how good dinner would be.  I told David, "Since I made the sauce, how about I make some Italian sausage and we could have Italian Sausage sandwiches for dinner?"  He was very pleased with this idea.  I got the package out of the refrigerator that said "Italian Sausage med (with) Parmesan".   You have to understand that the sausage does not look like anything I am familiar with in the U.S.  I browned the sausage and being of Italian descent we usually brown it and then add it to the sauce.  Which I did.  BIG MISTAKE, HUGE!!!

A few hours later I start to prepare the sandwiches, I warm the bread, fry some peppers and assemble the sandwiches with cheese and melt in the oven.  First bite, YUCK!  The sausage is nothing more than a Swedish hotdog with an icky texture.  I promptly removed my sausage from my sandwich and ate it only with the peppers and cheese.  Nice dinner!  David is more of a trooper and actually ate the whole thing.  I then ask him if he would taste the sauce and if it tastes the same way it smells - smokey!  Yep it did!  Unfortunately, the sausage got thrown out and the sauce was flushed down the toilet (No, I don't have a disposal here, so it was the only way to get rid of it!)  Embarrassing.

I then had to run out to the store on Monday morning and buy the ingredients to remake my sauce.  This time it was just as good as the original before the sausage and the meal was a huge success!  My chicken parm was very good and I did not have to be embarrassed by the smoky sauce.

Second Experience-

Yesterday I decided to make Irish Soda Bread to go with our dinner.  I do not have my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook with me, so I looked up a recipe for it on Everyday Food (http://www.marthastewart.com/340584/irish-soda-bread).  So I found a recipe and proceeded to make it. I make the sour milk, mix all the ingredients and then I am supposed to knead it.  However, the dough was much more liquidy than I have ever experienced in my previous times making Irish Soda Bread.  So, I decide to take it out of the bowl and add more flour so I can knead it.  I knead it for awhile, trying to get it to the right consistency and finally into a small enough round to bake.  I am feeling pretty good that I got it to where it should be.  Well, I put it in the oven and the whole thing spreads out into this huge mound (kind of like a flattened ski hill)!  I decided to continue to bake it and just hope for the best.  David gets home from work and sees this mound cooling on the counter.  He wants to know what this mound is.  I tell him that it is supposed to be Irish Soda bread, but I am not sure that it will be edible.  I am embarrassed and devastated that I have had two cooking tragedies so far this week.  Good news - the bread was fabulous!  The consistency was beautiful and the texture was perfect.  David said he liked it better than the other recipe.

(I was just now reviewing the recipe and saw what I did wrong!  Therefore, we can all learn from my experience. Just add two tablespoons of butter into the wet ingredients, not all three!)

I guess it is going to take some practice to get used to cooking here in Sweden and trying to get things just right and making sure I read correctly.  As everyone always tells me - "Bridgette slow down!" 

Good thing - I don't have to cook anything tonight!