xyzzysqrl

As Adam Savage once quoted, the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down. Accordingly, here's my notes on the soup I decided to make because we had a bunch of leftover random-ass vegetables laying around and I wanted some soup:

I mixed:

One chopped red pepper
One bag baby carrots (probably a pound?)
One bag fingerling potatos (maybe a pound-ish? a little over?)
One half-jar pickled pepperoncini and also some of the pickling liquid (oops)
Four cups vegetable broth and one cup chicken broth (left over from other things)
2 tablespoons pepper
1 half tablespoon salt
A couple really big shakes from the "Italian Seasoning" shaker (I should read what's in that someday)

in the instant pot and pushed the "soup" button with vast optimism.

While it was busy coming up to pressure, I realized suddenly that I had forgotten to add any of the goddamn LEFTOVER CABBAGE that was the purpose of this exercise in soup to begin with. So I stopped it and added one large bowl of leftover cabbage and also a small chopped up tomato and a few shakes of worchestershire sauce and pushed "soup" again.

I'll see how it came out once it's done. Probably rather salty.

(ONE HOUR LATER)



Somewhere in the above "recipe", I made a Mistake. Did you, the alert reader, spot my error? Did you have a moment of "oh my god, wait, don't!" as I should have? Let's focus in a little.

2 tablespoons pepper

Yeah that's it.

Oops. I have accidentally created Death Pepper Broth, in which little can be tasted beneath the overwhelming warmth of THE OBLITERATING ALL-CONSUMING PEPPER THAT MAKES UP THE FUNDAMENT OF OUR REALITY.

Beyond that, it's fine. Like, once you get into a potato or something, delicious. Mm.

But ... well. I have leftovers I can re-heat now, I suppose.

Uh, does anyone know how to -un- pepper a soup?

[EDIT:

Added some milk to it.
That helped a LOT. Like, a whole lot. It's not perfect but it's more edible.]

Oh, I fucked this UP in just about every way you can fuck up a recipe, I think.

To start with, I got this one off Furaffinity, which is a place you can get recipes now it seems like. I don't know why this is a thing but sure I'll make some furry food.

A: One head of cabbage is TOO FUCKING MUCH. (Or so I thought. See below.)
B: I managed to successfully brown the bottom of the pan instead of the bacon and onion, using saute.
C: Because (supposedly) WAY TOO FUCKING MUCH CABBAGE I just panicked, threw a bunch in there with the stock and seasonings and sausage, spooned in too much butter and let it go. I didn't brown the sausage, I didn't add the potatos or the extra carrots I planned to add, I just closed it up and hoped for the best.
D: I did not get the lid on right and it was happily bubbling away under no pressure at all for a while.
E: It says on the instant pot very clearly not to overfill it, but the way the cabbage cooked down from "a 65% full pot" to "25% of a pot". I ... should have used more? But that would have meant overfilling the pot. Nervous about that.

Whoof. So... No potatoes or browned sausage or carrots, plus I messed up every way I think I could. I wasn't even sure I could eat the results at first. It smelled okay, but what if it was raw or something, even after ten minutes of high-pressure cooking?



It came out mostly okay. There was enough for two bowls, even if I should have done more to it. I feel like... man, this was a learning experience. I panicked a lot and I messed up what should have been a simple meal.

So what did I learn?

Well.
1. Read everything. Three or four times.
2. Vegetable matter can and probably will cook down in the pot. It MAY be safe to 'overfill' it. I need to research this.
3. I should probably be supervised. The BF was asleep and I forged ahead anyway. Every now and then I start thinking I'm competent enough to do things without adult supervision and it's like: nope.
4. As the good book says, DON'T PANIC. My worst mistake was flipping out and trying to rush through shoveling stuff in and out of the instant pot instead of slowing down and thinking for a few seconds or stopping entirely. I had cold fried chicken in the fridge, I could have just had that.

This worked out and was edible food but it's NOT the recipe I was trying to make and that's a failure, but it's a learning failure.

So... I dunno, now I have some potatoes and a full bowl of cabbage because I didn't use it all and ... maybe I'll get some more sausage and try again, or maybe make a vegetable soup of some kind, or maybe just stick to chili for a while.

Still, I learned something.

[UPDATE: The leftovers, after a night in the fridge, were oddly delicious but boy howdy was there a fat layer crusting the top. I absolutely shoveled in waaaay too much butter. On the other hand? Still delicious. Absolutely gonna try this again later ... but chili is in my future.)

We did this, except:

No onions, just carrots. Four big ones, peeled, but we didn't chop them.
Three cloves of garlic, peeled ... as best we could by hand? I'm sure there's a trick to this. I don't know what it is.
1 cup chicken broth, 1 cup apple juice.

What worked: The pork came out chewy, but completely cooked inside and out. It tasted good, too. The carrots had a lingering sweetness from both the carroty... carrotness and the apple juice.

What didn't: The carrots were nearly ATOMIZED by cooking right next to the roast for all that time, so soft they were dissolving. Didn't really taste the garlic or garlic powder. Or much of the apple juice for that matter. Maybe more liquid next time? Roast was slightly mushy, could've used oven time to crisp it up some.

Verdict: Yeah this was food. This was pretty good actually, for a first-time thing where I deliberately found the simplest recipe I could and read the steps off my phone while we were cooking.

Woof: "I wouldn't serve this to Gordon Ramsey or anything, but this tastes good."
Sqrlmog: "I forgot how CHEWY pork is. I'm pretty sure that's on purpose. Also, did I really get ALL the skin off the garlic? I'm still worried."

We had a good bit of liquid left over, maybe we'll strain it into a thermos and try... I dunno, pouring it into chili? What do you do with leftover, uh... cooking ... fluid ... if you're not gonna make a gravy right there?

Woof: "If we do put this in the fridge, I'm laying increasing odds every day that you'll absent-mindedly root around in there, pop the thermos open and drink the contents without thinking about it."
Sqrlmog: "...no, that's ... that's fair. That would... that might happen. I can't deny that."

Anyway.

EDIBLE FOOD WAS MADE.