God Carrot I Have Failed...

It's been a long time since I've updated this blog. It's been an even longer time since I've failed at creating a recipe. But I guess I have to share my failures as well as my successes.

Right now I am taking a class called Writing about Food. Basically, I love it. I've wanted to update my blog for so long, but this class truly inspired me to finally put aside the time and follow a recipe. Someone in the class mentioned carrots. 'Carrot', the word itself, triggered my imagination.

I love carrots. I can sit down and eat a whole bag of baby carrots (even though it's healthly gluttonly, it's still better than a bag of potato chips!) So I thought, I'm going to focus on carrots. And instead of a savory dinner or lunch dish, I'm going to bake with them.

I was wrong. Oh boy, I was so wrong. I was one of those weird kids that actually looked forward to carrot cake, but this time, I was so wrong. I didn't have time to make and frost a cake so I thought "let's try muffins!" And from that I thought, "I'm going to make this muffin recipe into a bread recipe." What? Why? I was so much younger last night. I've learned from my mistakes since then.

Let me take you through my mistakes, so you don't make the same

My first mistake: Thinking I was better than the recipe.
On Wednesday, quick after class, I Googled 'Carrot Muffin recipes.' I found 2 I liked. One from the Food Network (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/healthy-carrot-muffin-recipe/index.html) and one from Martha Stewart (http://www.marthastewart.com/337237/spiced-carrot-muffins).

I looked at both of these recipes, liking aspects from both, and tried to combine them into my own madness. I liked the whole wheat flour from the Food Network recipes and I like the use of yogurt in the Martha Stewart recipe. So I took my favorite aspects from each, combined them, and ultimately failed. What I should have done? Followed one recipe. I'm not a real chef. I have amateur cooking and baking skills. I should have stuck to the recipe.

My second mistake: I substituted ingredients I know I shouldn't have.
In the Martha Stewart recipe, it calls for plain yogurt. Not plain Greek yogurt. Just plain yogurt. So what did I do? I got cocky and thought 'This recipe is from 2004. I'm sure if Martha knew about Greek yogurt then, she would have used it...I'm as good as Martha.' Wrong. So wrong. And you know what? I hate plain yogurt. If I were to use yogurt in this recipe again, it would be vanilla non-Greek yogurt.

My third mistake: In a word, applesauce.
If you read either one of these recipes, you would see that neither of them calls for applesauce. Nope. Leave it to amateur chef Tori to think of the best way to add moisture. Typically, recipes will call for mixing of dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in another and then combine them. Well, when I put the wet ingredients into the dry ones, still too dry. What did I think the best solution would be? I scattered all over the kitchen for vegetable oil when I remembered "No make this healthy buddy, use applesauce." Of course! So there it went. A 1/2 cup of applesauce into this mush I was trying to make into bread.

So, ultimately what was wrong with it? Everything.
And I'm not being over dramatic or over exaggerating by any means. The outside was too crisp and burnt, the inside was too moist and not fully baked (but if I left it in any longer, it would have been a black rock before the inside actually became fully solid). The taste was terrible. And I blame it all on the plain Greek yogurt. I really hate plain Greek yogurt for both the taste and the texture. The tart, thick cream like substance that it is should just be used to caulk bathroom tile. It was so bad I didn't even let Steve, the toting loyal try-anything-once-put my taste buds through anything-boyfriend, try it. Especially because I just got done berating him on how squeezing an entire lemon over salmon doesn't give salmon flavor, it just makes it bitter.

So I'd like to challenge you. If you can take these 2 recipes (because don't think I'm going to stop trying or researching on making carrot muffins or carrot bread or carrot something) and combine them to make something delicious, let me know! I will give you a prize of being my best friend and sending you a signed autograph of some lined paper I have laying around.

Also, I hereby promise to post more often and to make time to actually cook and bake more. Maybe then I wouldn't have to post about failing...