When Dinner Goes Bad

I think it says a lot about the eats last week that I started writing this last Thursday and finished it tonight, a Tuesday.  It was an emotional rollercoaster (in a most non-important way) but I think we've bounced back.  Although, once again, it's only Tuesday night.

We started strong on Sunday night.  I put together this meal kit from quite a few leftover recipe ingredients.  So it was a very good fridge cleaning meal with delightfully neat, mandolin-sliced veggies.

There's a place here that I've grown to love - aka am mildly obsessed with - called Lulu's Thai Noodle Shop.  So I decided to give it a whirl at home with zucchini "zoodles" subbed for the noodles.  I did a combo of this Spicy Perspective recipe with this Foodista one.

It turned out GREAT.  So let's savor this tasty Thai Drunken Zoodle moment shall we?

After that, it was mostly downhill.  And then sorta uphill.  But I digress.

Monday night, we had something designed purely to use up leftover cabbage.  The recipe was called a One Skillet Amish meal.  (Why?  No clue.)  The recipe featured ground turkey mixed with cabbage, pureed tomatoes and a can diced tomatoes.  I added some fresh basil, garlic and onion for a good time.  But it still just meat with cabbage and tomato sauce.  The hubs liked it but I was sorta eh.

That one skillet meal was unfortunately just the lead-up to the real failure.  *Hangs head*

I got a curry sauce from Trader Joe's.  It wasn't quite our taste but I thought it would be good on the grill.  I carefully trimmed chicken breasts, green bell peppers and onions.  Marinaded for a couple days. 

And then we didn't grill.

After the rain finally slacked off some, we were left with very hot, very humid weather.  So for some reason firing up the grill sounded like not fun on Tuesday evening.  I shoved the whole thing in the oven thinking we'd just roast it.

And it was blech.

Look at that mess.  Blargh.  My fault.  Lots of waste bc neither one of us could stand the thought of leftovers.  I was filled with shame.  As much as I hate a disappointing meal, I really hate throwing food away.

Let's use this as a learning meal and move on shall we?  (And never speak of it again.  You say Trader Joe's curry sauce to me and I'll be all, 'wahhhh?  Trader Joe's has a curry sauce?')

Wednesday, I bounced back a little with a nice chicken quarter baked over baby carrots and red potatoes.

The chicken on top really is a great way to roast veggies.  The chicken juices over the carrots and potatoes makes them just delish.

But who cares?  By Thursday, I don't even know...  We might have had some leftovers.  We might have just eaten eggs.  At this point, I was over the week.  

Do you try new things often?  Products or recipes?  I do and have typically had a pretty good track record.  Or at very least not throw in the trash results.  But all we can do is move it along.  (What curry sauce?)  It's just dinner after all.  And I have half a big bag of shredded carrots have already made for a better start to this week.  (Cliffhanger!)