I am an optimistic chef, with mixed results. It seems that my life philosophy of "oh, I'm sure it will work out" doesn't really translate well to the kitchen. Something to do with food science and chemical reactions not having as much leeway as they ought.
Vivian used to be the queen of creative substitutions, but then she gave it up for Lent one year and never went back. It's lonely now, in the 'sounded like a good idea' club. I thought it would be entertaining to make a list of various culinary adventures...please add your own, cause I don't have THAT many specifics:
1. tonight I was making an apple pie that called for apple juice...but I didn't have any apple juice. After briefly considering and then discarding cider vinegar, I found a juice box of fruit punch in the cupboard. Hey, this has apple juice IN it! No problem, right? But then as I was mixing it up, the filling clearly smelled like fruit punch. End result: happy. Fruit punch pie tasted just like apple pie. Yum.
2. Rachel reminded me of the time in Korea when we didn't have any vinegar to dye Easter eggs, so I mixed up the little pellets with a bottle of A1 steak sauce we'd inherited from the apartment's previous owners. Result: OK. The eggs did dye, but you had to leave them in for a long time and there were little red flakes all over them.
3. Making collard greens, I needed apple cider vinegar. Surely plain vinegar with apple juice mixed in will be the same, right? Result: Yes. vinegar + apple cider= apple cider vinegar.
4. In Puerto Rico I couldn't find any baking soda, so I decided to use baking powder instead to make cookies, figuring that baking powder has baking soda in it, so what's the difference?
Result: Bad. Very bad, very weird cookies. Do not recommend.
5. This list would not be complete without mentioning the time that Viv substituted chocolate chips for cream filling in cream puffs by simply mixing the chips into the puff dough. Result: infamously bad.
6. And also the time that Viv (pre-Lent) substituted granulated sugar for powdered sugar in the frosting of a homemade chocolate cake. Result: memorably gritty.
OK guys- your turn.
1. if any recipe calls for vinegar and any variation of tomato, i usually add catsup.
ReplyDelete2. i traded KIX cereal for rice crispys once in rice crispy treats. worked fairly well.
3. i haven't had much luck with subing different bread products for passable pizza crust(ie using french bread or english muffins). usually tastes like toast with tomato sauce on it.
4. subing maple for vanilla in frosting - mmmmm!
5. subing powdered milk for...well...anything - blech.
4.
I'm not sure which chocolate cake you're talking about, but if it is the one I'm thinking of Viv also substituted Crisco for Rancid Crisco (a hard to find item, usually only found in college apartments).
ReplyDeleteResult: well just because Viv and I and then Carrie all ate some doesn't mean we liked it.
just a couple weeks ago:
ReplyDeletemaking cookies i ran out of maple flavoring, and used maple syrup and vanilla flavoring (just fine). ran out of sour cream, and used cream cheese and milk (just fine). and had no powdered sugar, so followed internet tip to put granulated sugar in the blender with corn starch (NOT just fine).