My Cooking Experience - Flops & Successes

[IcyMist]

Well this has really been a learning experience. I have only had two and a half flops.

One was the cheddar cheese crackers (will post recipe later so somone can help me figure out why).

The second flop is the one that I hate being a flop since I spent hours and hours cutting, dipping and then cooking....the chicken nuggets. The test recipe for the chicken nuggets that I made weeks ago turned out great. They were crunchy, had a great flavor and looked good. After freezing the unbaked chicken (recipe said you could do so if frozen in single layer and then packed after frozen) ebded yo being a flop. They were greasy, soggy, only crunchy on the bottom. I kept trying different things to get them where they would look good EXCEPT defrosting them before cooking. I don't have the time to do that. After sitting in the frig, the test batch still tasted good cold......this batch was so unappealing that I couldn't force one of those greasy bites into my mouth. After the reception and I have a desire to cook again, I will try defrosting some of the nuggets left (still have about 25 pounds sitting in freezer) and baking them for family. If they are like the test recipe then we will have several meals of nuggets.....if not the dump rats get another feast.

The half flop was the deviled eggs. It was totally my fault, but it was a learning experience. Don't get me wrong, the egg filling tastes great, it just doesn't have that beautiful yellow color to them. Each batch I made, I would open one egg to make sure they were done before taking the eggs out of the water and they were a beautiful yellow color. I then dumped them in the ice bath, but I don't think I left them in there long enough. I noticed when I was putting them in the refrigerator that some had some residual heat but ignored it. THAT was my mistake I think. I wanted to get 15 dozen eggs done fast and in the frig. I think if it was just one layer of eggs sitting in frig they may not have turned, BUT I had 15 dozen stacked on top of each other and so maybe the heat spread? But anyways they flavor is great, they are just not the pretty yellow color. I am still taking those because the filling is very good if I do say so myself. I like the simple no frills added deviled egg of egg, mayo, mustard, sweet relish, white pepper and salt.

Even though I am not planning on making this much food again, I have learned some good recipes and will probably still try out some of the recipes that I found after surfing forever and also to use up the ingredients I can freeze. I have a ton of jalepino monterey jack cheese which I didn't make the Jalepino Balls because I ran out of time. I have about 25 lbs of sirloin in freezer that I didn't make into bites with a margaritta sauce. 6 lbs of crumbled up bacon and lots of roma tomatoes that I was going to make BLT appetizers out of and 16 boxes of phillo shells. Sigh, I think I still have some cooking to do.

I wanted to thank everybody for their opinions, ideas and help. I really appreciate it and don't think I would have had as many successes if I hadn't had help from you guys.

By the way the menu (my part) ended up being

Deviled Eggs
Cold Veggie Pizza
Taco Cups
Pigs in a Blanket
Surprise Bundles (cheddar, diced ham, onion, cream cheese) stuffed in biscuits and baked
veggie tray with ranch dressing

Flops Not Going

Chicken Nuggets....(sob)
Cheddar Cheese Crackers

 

[Gretchen]

I am not surprised that your chicken was soggy. I think if you saute them rather than bake you will have crisp and brown nuggets however.
I don't understand what you are saying about your eggs. I don't think the cooling would make the difference. Did you boil them in a stainless steel or enamel pan? If you boiled them in aluminum they get that dark ring, but the yolk should still be yellow.

 

[marmalady]

Sorry about the 'flops', Icy; catering for a large crowd is very, very hard! As for what didn't get done - trade secret here - even professional caterers have been known to '88' something at the last minute if it's not looking good or hasn't been done in time!

 

[bevkile]

I hope this will help. As soon as the eggs have boiled, immediately pour off the hot water, run cold tap water filled with ice cubes over the eggs. The object is to chill the yolks as quickly as possible, to keep the yolks from turning that ugly gray green. I hope this will work for you. It works for me.

 

[IcyMist]

Ty Marmalady you made me feel better. As for the eggs, I forgot to dump the hot water out of the pot before adding the ice.....sigh, can tell I was tired.

 

[skilletlicker]

huh?-88?

...As for what didn't get done - trade secret here - even professional caterers have been known to '88' something at the last minute if it's not looking good or hasn't been done in time!

What does it mean to "88 something"?

 

[marmalady]

Whoops - should have been '86'; in restaurant parlay, when there's none left, or it's gone bad. IE, if you're running a 'special' on lobsters, and have run out of them, the chef will tell the wait staff 'the special is 86'd'. Likewise, if those lobs have gone south!

 

[ironchef]

Everyone learns from experience. I think part of the problem was that you just didn't have the right equipment and tools needed for this function. Regarding some of the challenges you had:

1. With your eggs, it's hard to say if temperature played a part or not in the resulting color. But if your eggs were still warm when you placed them into the fridge, the amout of heat that was being generated by the amount of eggs would've raised the temperature of the fridge, especially if you were using a home fridge. A commerical fridge has much more powerful cooling properties and would've helped, but not necessarily solved the problem. But, you learned from your initial mistake which was not letting the eggs cool enough in their ice bath.

2. With your nuggets, the one surefire way that you should've done them was to deep fry them. Again, a commerical deep fat fryer (one that holds usually 20+ lbs. of oil) would've been the absolute best tool for the job, but it sounds as if you did not or would not have had access to this. One thing I can recommend is to never, ever do any type of food for a big function that would be better off deep fried, if you don't have the equipment needed. You can never simulate or duplicate the results in an oven. For a small batch it might work, but for doing a test batch and then doing several hundred for the actual meal, it probably won't. Too many uncontrollable factors.

 

[IcyMist]

Well my mother ended up having to come home early (she is 82) and so I left the party a little late, BUT it was a success. My sister convinced me to take the chicken nuggets and people loved them. Maybe I am my own worst critic. Funny thing is, with all the food I cooked, I didn't eat a thing today. I was not even the slightest bit hungry, so I skipped eating today.

The party was in full swing when I left and everything turned out wonderful. The bride was beautiful, I cried, the groom handsome, I cried, the church service was filled with laughter, I cried. When I left even though there were 1301 people there, we still had way too much food. Sister was telling people when they leave, to take food home with them. She doesn't want to send the food to the charity place this time because the reception hall was extremely hot and was worried about spoiled food.

 

[marmalady]

Glad things turned out okay - in spite of! As far as not eating - I would get so tired of what I was making, I didn't even want to look at food!

 

[Corinne]

Icy - you sound like me - way too much food, always! I have such a fear of running out. I did a wedding reception a couple years ago - more food left over than you can imagine. Some went to the homeless shelter, some went into people's freezers.

Oh - if you want to see something very funny, take a look at the 1st 3 photos on this page - this was one of my 1st large scale attempts at cooking. I had about 30 different items & had enough of each item to feed everyone! I could have fed everyone who attended the wedding the next day with the leftovers. These photos might even make you feel better!!

http://www.truerwords.net/meandmine/art_and_sarah/01_rehearsal.html

The deviled eggs - sprinkling them with paprika or some other herb/spice might have covered up some of that ugly color!

 

[IcyMist]

Oops I put 100 people, there were 301 people to be exact.

 

[IcyMist]

LOL thank you for sharing those pictures Corinne. It did make me feel better and I really hate that food was being thrown away, but it sat for hours in a hot hall and my sister and I both agree that pork, beef, and eggs should not sit out like that and then be given to a homeless shelter. We couldn't do it. I guess the hall was so hot this time because of it was filled to the rafters. We even had to scrounge up another table and squeeze it in.

 

[marmalady]

Ya live - ya learn - and ya move on! Icy, why don't you share some thoughts about what worked - what didn't - what you'd do again, and what you'd never touch!

 

[mudbug]

Thanks to whoever made Icy's title more accurate!

I would never attempt what you have done, Icy, so be proud about how well it turned out after all.

 

[IcyMist]

Thanks to whoever made Icy's title more accurate!l.

Huh? What did I have?

 

[mudbug]

I thought it just said Flops and not Successes. You did succeed, after all.

Did I read it too fast the first time?

 

[IcyMist]

IcyMist grabbed some glass cleaner and chamos cloth and wiped Mudbug's glasses.

 

[mudbug]

thanks - guess I needed that!

 

[IcyMist]

Hmmmm well there were several problems that I could only partially fix.

Space

The biggest problem I had was space, both work area and inside the frig. I know I had an extra frig, but between what I had fixed, groceries that I had for appetizers that I didn't fix and what my mother was making, I totally ran out of frig space and could have used another refrigerator. Also the work area is extremely small because the kitchen is small. The counters were already covered with stuff my mother had put on them and I should have taken the time to totally clear off the counters where I would have more room.

Time

I picked time consuming items. Some it was not too much of a problem, but the most time consuming item was the chicken nuggets. If I was helping with another wedding reception, I would NOT make the chicken nuggets. If I was only making chicken nuggets, then it would not have been such a problem, but I ran out of time because of the nuggets. By 10:30 Friday night I was totally exhausted and panicky because I still had over half the chicken nuggets to cook. I think I put them too close together or something and they just didn't crisp up or look as pretty as the test batch I did a few weeks before. If I ever think about tackling that recipe again, I hope somebody starts throwing chicken at me.

Another item I wouldn't make again is the veggie pizza because not much of that went which surprised me because it really was good. Maybe it looked too healthy and we did have many many items to choose from that didn't look healthy.

Success

I would make the deviled eggs again because every one of those were eaten and nobody had a chance to take any of those home. One guy had about 15 of them on his plate and after he had eaten half of them, he went and grabbed more. Also taking the eggs and stuffing to the reception hall and putting them together there was a good idea and it really didn't take me too long to stuff them because I used a pastry bag and star tube.

Stuffed Surprise Bundles

I would make these again, they are stuffed with chopped ham (cheated and purchased ham already chopped), bell pepper, onion, cream cheese, cheddar cheese, covered in a biscuit and then brushed with butter and rolled in parmesan cheese. Yummy!!!! The only problem I ran into with these was at first I was splitting the biscuits into 3 pieces and then wrapping the filling, but when they baked they would burst open from one end. If you split the buscuit dough in half it worked better. Some would still burst open but it may have been because I stuffed them with too much filling. A whole biscuit seemed to be too much dough.

Taco Cups

I would also make the taco cups again, but the next time I would try a test batch with fat free sour cream, fat free cheddar cheese and I would also grind my own meat so that there would NOT be too much grease. I have no idea if they were liked or not, but I know that I liked them. They also were easy to freeze and take out and warm up again.

Veggie Tray

LOL even though I had a nice mixture of slices of red, yellow and green bell pepper, summer squash, celery, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, mushrooms, zuccini sticks, baby carrots and turnips, with a good homemade ranch dressing, not that much went. I think this was NOT a health concious crowd. The tray was very very pretty.....just not eaten.

Changes

If I ever am crazy enough to agree to do this again, I would look for more items that can be frozen after they are cooked so all I would have to do is worry about getting them warmed up in time for party. I would NOT make items that are made, frozen and then cooked before party because they take up a lot of room in the freezer, I didn't allow enough time to get the nuggets cooked before I tired out on day before party and it was too late to discover that even though recipe said they could be frozen (I followed their instructions), they didn't cook up right.

I will probably think of more later, but it is time for me to get ready for work. Would rather have another day off because I have a mountain of laundry that I didn't do on Sunday. I was just too tired. Only thing I did was wash my poor pup (she would rather I hadn't), cleaned out the rented frig (still a lot of food in it) and cleaned up some in the kitchen.....then I vegged out and did zippo, nada, nothing, zil.

Supplies

Next time I will NOT go out and buy all of the supplies for cooking at one time because I did not make 3-4 recipes that I had planned on and I now have a bunch of cheese, miscellaneous other ingredients sitting in frig. Ended up tossing away some garnishes that I didn't use, have a bunch of crescent rolls, biscuits, breadsticks, etc. sitting in frig and now I have to make some appetizers to use the stuff up. ARGGGGG