Saturday, August 30, 2014

Turning Mayonnaise into Roasted Veggies


Okay, so I've again not posted absolutely anything in forever. No excuses, no long sob stories - other things got in the way and took priority. Leave it to life to make you choose how to best use your time. So why am I writing? Because today I found a life lesson... or it found me.

I moved back to my college apartment and thought I had taken care of all the preparations for the new school year... books bought and organized, apartment clean, belongings put in their place, roommates all arrived, and the stock-the-shelves grocery run. But I forgot a few things at the grocery store. One of them was mayonnaise. How can you make shredded chicken salad without mayonnaise? But I did have eggs and olive oil and some spices and some vinegar. So why not make my own? I researched recipes and found one that looked normal and reliable. Looked easy enough, right?

This. I wanted this. (via oliveoilandlemons.com)

So I got started and everything was going great. The egg, spices and oil were coming together beautifully and it was starting to look like mayo. Then it suddenly didn't. I got too excited and added too much oil too fast. Emulsification ruined. Does anyone know how to save ruined mayo? I don't. I tried. I had a base with more oil than it knew what to do with and well, I wasn't going to toss it. So my broken mayonnaise became a balsamic dressing.... but it still separated really easily. The oil to everything else ratio was still too high. What needs oil and spices? My answer: Roasted Vegetables. And guess what! They taste awesome. Crisp outsides and wonderful flavor. Now I'm writing around large mouthfuls of hot zucchini and golden sweet potato. My day of culinary mistakes turned into a wonderful meal. No mayo required. I'll try for that another day...and the rest of the "dressing" will make a great marinade for chicken later this week.

And the moral of today's life object lesson? A day of mistakes can still have a good ending if you take what you have and make it into something better. You won't always get what you started out for, but you can be satisfied with the end results (and it doesn't mean you won't ever have what you first wanted).

And maybe I'll throw some brownies in the oven to celebrate.

(...and now I've finally found a post to fix my first mistake. Ha! Next time it will be my friend.)

Back to the kitchen. Signing off till my next life object lesson.