Kitchen Failures

So I mentioned yesterday that I’m giving my crock pot a second chance. I also mentioned that my first attempt was a miserable failure. I looked for the recipe again so that I could share it and all of the various ways that it went wrong but I can’t seem to find it again. I must have deleted every evidence of it from my pinterest, recipe app and browser history! Or I’m just being disorganized again.

Anyway, when I started reading the recipe and it called for adding the broccoli WITH the beef at the beginning of the 6 or so hour cook time, I knew this was not going to be good. Usually, I like to make a recipe exactly as called for before I make any adjustments just so I know what I’m dealing with. I definitely should have listened to myself and made and exception this time. Broccoli in a crock pot for 6 or so hours = bitter mush. My kids don’t like broccoli to begin with – the only exception being a fabulous marinated broccoli recipe that a friend shared with me – so making it bitter and mushy did nothing to decrease the whining at the dinner table.

You would think that after being in a crock pot for 6 hours with soy sauce and pineapple juice (a natural meat tenderizer) the beef would have come out tender and delicious. It sounds like it should be, right? Pineapple juice! Soy sauce! Delicious, right? Nope. Dry and mushy. Just like I always fear from a crock pot. So put together dry, mushy beef; bitter mushy broccoli and you’ve got one epic failure. And left overs for a week. Ugh.

We have a rule at my house that you have to eat what’s on your plate. You don’t have to eat all of it if you don’t want but you have to try it and I won’t make separate meals. Except when I and/or daddy don’t like it either. Crockpot beef and broccoli night was one of those exceptions. I think the girls ended up eating PB&J.

Very often, I will mark a recipe ‘to try again’ and make some notes on what I’d like to do the next time to try to improve it. This recipe was beyond suggestion. I mean, sure. I could brown the beef before adding it to the crock pot and only put the broccoli in before we left for dance class but would that be enough to save it? And do I really want to invest the time and money again to find out? Nah. I think I’m just going to stick to Chinese take out when I feel the need for beef and broccoli. I’m rarely disappointed by take out!