Yucky Meals

Have you ever made a meal to feed your family that you thought would be great just to be sorely disappointed at the result? I have. Actually this has happened on numerous occasions but most recently on Wednesday night. It was truly yucky. I made meatloaf, yellow squash, corn on the cob and watermelon. Sounds good right? Wrong. To start off the hamburger from the meatloaf was not bad but it was getting a little old. It smelled really good as it was cooking but when we ate it all I could think of was "This horse is startin' to turn. . ." Definitily not the world's best meatloaf as the recipe promises. The squash would've been fine except that I burned it on the bottom and though I left the burned part in the frying pan the burned aroma tainted the remaining squash with carbonous flavor. Not pleasant. The corn, which I bought at a little farm stand called "Mr. Fresh's," was none too fresh. In fact it was so old that there was no sugar left in it. I've been told that the minute you harvest an ear of corn the sugar in it begins turning to starch. Well, I don't know how long Mr. Fresh had this corn sitting around but biting into an ear of it was almost like eating a spoonful of cornstrach. In Seth's words "Mom, this doesn't taste like corn." I couldn't eat it. The watermelon was the only part of the meal that I could even finish eating and while it had a good flavor let it be known that it was a little on the mealy side in terms of texture. The meal as a whole was vastly disappointing and way more time consuming than such hog slop should've taken to prepare.

Last night we had store bought tortellini, with pasta sauce from a jar and frozen vegetables. It took about 10 times less effort to prepare and tasted at least 10 times better. I generally think of myself as a good cook but the last week has been an exception. Saturday night I made banana bread. It smelled absolutely scrumptious. The scent filled the house and still lingered when I woke up Sunday morning. I thought "Great I'll have banana bread for breakfast--I always need something I can eat quickly on Sunday mornings." My mouth started to water as I sliced a nice thick slice of bread. I bit into it and *yuck.* I'd forgotten to add the sugar. What a disappointment. The smell was fantastic but the taste was not. Does anyone else ever have these kind of problems? I know my sister does because we laughed and laughed over our yucky meals. Hers was beef liver with baby artichokes. Sounds okay to me especially the baby artichokes part but her children apparently would disagree with me. It seems like sometimes despite my best efforts life produces starchy corn and meatloaf that's "startin' to turn." I guess I need to just be armed with some store-bought tortellini and sauce and be grateful for the watermelon.

So what's the worst meal you've made lately?

Gratitude List:
Sugar
Store-bought tortellini
My sister
The ability to laugh at myself on occasion