There goes my winning streak.

[rikibeth]

I was doing SO WELL this week with dinners. The pasta and broccoli and fake chicken thing on Saturday night, a lentil curry thing (and packaged mattar paneer) that eternaleponine ate willingly on Monday, and last night's campanelli with asparagus, basil, and balsamic glaze, a Cook's Illustrated recipe that both eternaleponine and melovechocolate enjoyed.

Tonight, though, was a big LOSE.

I had picked up the free magazine at the Wild Oats checkout to see if there were useful vegetarian recipes in it. One of them -- tempeh bourguignon -- struck me as having potential. After all, I had half a bottle of red wine that needed using up, and it was basically protein chunks with onions, garlic, and mushrooms otherwise.

So I set about making it, and it was ready when eternaleponine came home.

She did her usual neophobe routine when she came in the house -- "it smells funny," picking up the lid and going "it has MEAT in it?"

"No, that's tempeh," I told her.

"I'm afraid of it. I'm gonna DIE."

Well, despite the complaining, we did both try it. Served out the rice, spooned the mixture on top, put the green beans next to it...

and...

YUCK.

Tempeh is really, really gross. Even marinating it didn't help. It just tasted yucky, AND it was gritty and weird besides, even after having been marinated AND sauteed.

I didn't even swallow the one bite I took, it was that gross.

"Scrambled eggs and toast?" I offered.

"Or pizza. I'll pay," eternaleponine offered.

"Scrambled eggs will be faster," I pointed out.

So we had scrambled eggs and toast for dinner. And then tea with honey maple stroopwaffels, which have toy value as well as sweet goodness. eternaleponine is not a big tea drinker, so there was the moment of her standing in front of my overstocked tea cupboard, going "Which one did I like again? It had a lion on the box."

"That's Madagascar Vanilla Rooibos. We're out of it. What about this one?" I said, picking out the pomegranate rooibos instead.

"I don't want MONKEY tea, I want LION tea," she said.

"It's a nice monkey. Look, it's like Abu," I said. After all, it was wearing a fez.

She declared it "all right."

This is why I usually don't try new recipes when melovechocolate is in the house. It doesn't matter if she WOULD have liked something, because if eternaleponine doesn't like it, she will be sufficiently influenced by eternaleponine's grossed-out scrunchyfaces that she won't even take a bite.

Conversely, if eternaleponine doesn't find anything to dislike about it, it'll almost certainly pass the eleven-year-old test. Except for not-chicken Marsala, because melovechocolate still refuses to deal with mushrooms if they're big enough to make a bite. But she can eat around those in that dish.

Still, I have to give her credit for TRYING.

That was really gross!

Comments

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. A weeknight dinner that one's not.

I'll have to try the asparagus dish. I adore asparagus, but I get in a rut with it.