Experimentation

My culinary skills have come about because I was never afraid to try new things.  At times, my dishes have turned out wonderfully, and other times they were flops.

I've made cheese, breads, spice mixes, and all manner of food.  I've had some dishes with some tweaking have become family favorites and others that have been so terrible that I'll never make them again.  Ask my children about the time I made a dish with tempeh or shoo-fly pie! lol

I picked blackberries the other day and needed to do something with them.  It wasn't quite enough for a normal pie, so I decided to make a pie with just the bottom crust and some decorative leaves on top.  Yum!

I tried my hand at homemade pasta.  I decided to make ravioli and looked at a couple of recipes and thought it looked simple.  One thing all of the recipes I saw neglected to say is how long it would take to need all the flour and egg mixture together to get it the right consistency.  

I started out doing it on my counter like most said to do.  I threw two batches away because I thought I did something wrong because it was a giant, crumbly mess!  Then I found a recipe that did it with a Kitchenaid mixer, so I decided to try one last time.  Success!  It just is a very long process to incorporate all of it together.  I'm thankful for modern technology.

Looks like a brain!

The ravioli tasted great, though next time I need to roll it thinner.  I have a pasta maker that I've never used, but it doesn't have the ravioli attachment. I'll have to play with this a bit.  

I made my own marinara sauce and that turned out wonderfully delicious.

Don't be afraid to experiment in the kitchen.  You may be surprised at how well things can turn out.  And if it flops, try again!