Ruined Recipes II: Some nights everything just goes terribly wrong

Being a domestic goddess is hard y'all and sometimes I miss the mark. Sometimes I don't even hit the wall in front of me and I end up shooting myself in the foot. I was trying to make a few fantastic plant based meals that went together efficiently, which my partner and I could eat on for a couple of days. Instead I ended up with a fantastic blog post. Today I have 4 recipes for your enjoyment: "Perfect butternut squash," "Sucky southwestern sweet potato soup," "Cringe-worthy cornbread," and "Way-too-garlicky butternut squash hummus." Most of these are based off of recipes from the http://minimalistbaker.com, which is filled with simple, delicious, and apparently impossible to make and unalterable recipes.

"Perfect butternut squash"
Purchase a 600lb butternut squash with the intention of using it to do a test run of the "Zuccbuttplant" recipe (vegan turduckin), before Thanksgiving. Since it is still on the counter on the last day of Novermber its time to cook this bad boy. Ask partner (who feels helpless but just wants to contribute somehow) to peel and cube the monster, and save the seeds for later planting and immediate roasting for a pre-dinner snack.  After he does all the hard work, spray pan with oil and pile on the cubes creating a single layer of squash with no seasoning or oil. Put in 350 degree oven until soft and caramelized. Delicious. Separate seeds from pulp and reserve about 10 for planting next year. (I'll probably forget I have them). Add 1 tbsp of coconut oil and a random spice mix from the cabinet and mix with the seeds. place on parchment paper and put in the toaster oven on 400 degrees. These might have turned out great if I had taken them out about 20 minutes earlier than I did.  At least my dogs got a pre-dinner snack.

"Sucky southwestern sweet potato soup"
Soak unmeasured quantity of dried kidney beans in water in the fridge for  20 hours, because using dried beans instead of cans saves money and reduces waste. Drain beans and place in pot with 2x the water to boil. Add 1/4 of an onion because whatever, and spoonful of bullion let boil for about 30 minutes: just enough time to chop one sweet potato and 2 carrots, and put together ingredients for "cringe-worthy cornbread." Add 1/2 can salsa, sweet potato and carrot to bean boil projecting that the beans will be finished by the time veggies are done cooking. Find a lone potato in the fridge and add that too because why not just fuck everything up.
Continue to let boil for another 40 minutes while lamenting that the beans still aren't done. 10 minutes later, sample a bean, and gag. Add 2 cups more water to the pot and continue to boil while pulling the cringe-worthy cornbread and a butternut squash out of the oven in preparation for "way-too-garlicky butternut squash hummus" After the rest of the vegetables are essentially liquified and overcooked, sample a bean one more time. They are still way underdone. Pour out soup into bowl and painstakingly pick out all the beans. Resolve to save the day by turning soup into creamy delicious butternut squash soup. Add remaining vegetables and 2 cups roasted butternut squash to blender. slowly add cashew milk until desired consistency, which for me was just liquid enough to be able to easily pour out of blender. Add a little bit more water to soup and warm up in original pot after scraping caramelized (slightly burned) residue off the bottom.
Taste soup. disgusting. add barbecue sauce. terrible.

"Cringe-worthy cornbread:"

I was too embarrassed to show the rows of unfilled cups.

Start with a recipe online for minimalist baker's "Cornbread for 2" and double the quantities even though there are just two of us eating tonight. I'm a moron.

• small flax egg (1/2 Tbsp flax seed meal + 1 1/2 Tbsp water) 

*(Instead I used 2 egg-replacer eggs prepared using box instructions)

• 1/4 cup + 3 Tbsp plain unsweetened almond milk + 1 tsp lemon juice or apple cider vinegar

*(Instead I used about 2/3 of a cup of "original" cashew milk which includes sugar, and the juice from 1/2 a lemon, however much that is.)

• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda *(pretty sure I used 1/2 teaspoon)

• 2 Tbsp vegan butter, melted *(The only time I used a microwave all night, and it worked!)

• 1/4 cup cane or granulated sugar  *(Left this out because milk and applesauce contained sugar. this was a mistake)

• 1 Tbsp unsweetened applesauce *(Had a jar of highly spiced applesauce I made a month ago, because that just might add some mysterious exotic flavor. I scraped the mold off the top and used 2 tbsp)

• pinch sea salt *(however the fuck much that is)

• 1/4 cup + 3 Tbsp fine yellow cornmeal *(1/2 cup and 6 tablespoons which was super annoying to measure out and probably could have just gone with 3/4 of a cup)

• 1/4 cup + 3 Tbsp unbleached all purpose flour *(Yeah, I used white wheat flower which was also probably a mistake)

Proceed with the recipe by making the fake egg, curdling the nutmilk, melting the butter, whipping together all the wet ingredients and mixing in the dry.
Recipe called for greasing up a couple large ramekins, but I decide to spray grease onto a "mini cupcake" pan (which I thought would make the cutest little cornbreads, but instead it ruined my life) and spoon mixture into about 3/4 of the spaces available in the pan before running out. go figure. Take "before picture" to be used for future instagram post, but leave out the empty cups because it's supposed to be a square anyway. Place into 350 degree oven next to butternut squash cubes which wow are almost done. let bake for ?????? whenever it turns golden brown, which it already was to begin with but i guess the edges started to get slightly more brown. about 30 minutes. remove from oven in a flash of panic because you think you smell burning but really its just the butternut squash seeds burning in the toaster oven.

Might as well just burn the kitchen down and be done with it.

Cornbread comes out dense in the center and crispy on the outside, Still edible while fresh from the oven but quickly turn roughly the texture of dog biscuits after cooling. and not sweet AT ALL. Consider dunking in "Sucky southwestern sweet potato soup" as suggested by the minimalist baker blog to soften the abominations, before remembering that the soup is ruined also.


"Way-too-garlicky butternut squash hummus"
First delight in the fact that at least the butternut squash came out perfectly.
Peel 5 giant cloves of fresh garlic (recipe called for 4 probably normal sized but I love garlic)
Add to blender with 1/4 cup olive oil, handful of cilantro, 1/4 cup tahini, 1 can of drained chickpeas, 1/2 teaspoon cumin, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and smoked paprika, "pinch" of salt (still unclear whether this is supposed to be 1/4 or 1/8 teaspoon). Pulse to mix. add 1 cup of roasted butternut squash. Blend away.
Re-read recipe while blending and realize that half of the garlic was supposed to be roasted with the butternut squash. Oh well, I love roasted garlic but it's way too late for that now. Fresh garlic is good too. It was almost delicious, but that garlic was totally out of hand. Nearly impossible to eat even for a garlic-hound like myself. 

Dinner is served: crazy insane hummus and stale pita from the fridge.