Let me hear your well intended healthy recipe FAILS

abbynormalartist

Laughter is the best medicine and sometimes when we try our hardest to make something great, it's good to laugh when it comes out a flaming hot mess.

Yesterday I made my staple summer zucchini bread but I tweaked it a bit to make it heather. The problem was, I went overboard with the tweaking. I cut the sugar in half, then half again and substituted part with stevia. I intended to cut out the oil and eggs and replace with applesauce except at the last minute I still put in the eggs out of habit. I didn't have enough zucchini so I threw in a ripe banana. Zucchini and banana bread are similar, right? I reduced the flour and plopped in some protein powder. To top it off, my 5 year old threw some sprinkles at it.

The result, FLAMING HOT MUSH MESS- green, with a faint smell of banana, and of course, sprinkles.

ck2d

I made scrambled eggs with spinach. Frozen spinach. Got the ratio all wrong. Disgusting.

Geocitiesuser

Every single time I experiment with trying to make low calorie brownies, I end up throwing them away. Last time I tried a can of pumpkin, half cup of self rising cake flour, an egg, some applesauce, and 30g cocoa. It had the consistency of wet dog poop even when cooled. Right in the trash it went.

There is no such thing as a healthy or low calorie brownie unless you are buying fitcrunch or lenny/larry brownies. I give up.

rheddmobile

I made some banana oatmeal cookies, using canned pumpkin instead of banana. They were delicious. But it seems I am allergic to canned pumpkin. I turned brick red all over! I didn't realize at first it was the cookies and ate one the next day. Brick red again! I had to give them to my mother. Since then I have confirmed I'm allergic to canned pumpkin.

My husband once tried to make a cherry cobbler using bananas instead of cherries. It burned and smelled like old tires.

joinn68

Geocitiesuser wrote: »

Every single time I experiment with trying to make low calorie brownies, I end up throwing them away. Last time I tried a can of pumpkin, half cup of self rising cake flour, an egg, some applesauce, and 30g cocoa. It had the consistency of wet dog poop even when cooled. Right in the trash it went.

There is no such thing as a healthy or low calorie brownie unless you are buying fitcrunch or lenny/larry brownies. I give up.

Have you tried high protein brownies? (black beans brownies). They work for me.

Geocitiesuser

joinn68 wrote: »

Geocitiesuser wrote: »

Every single time I experiment with trying to make low calorie brownies, I end up throwing them away. Last time I tried a can of pumpkin, half cup of self rising cake flour, an egg, some applesauce, and 30g cocoa. It had the consistency of wet dog poop even when cooled. Right in the trash it went.

There is no such thing as a healthy or low calorie brownie unless you are buying fitcrunch or lenny/larry brownies. I give up.

Have you tried high protein brownies? (black beans brownies). They work for me.

Yes, I have tried everything. Nothing is as satisfying as a real brownie. It's not worth it. Also black bean brownies aren't low calorie. Their calorie count is similar to normal brownies, and at that point, I'd rather eat a real brownie.

Chef_Barbell

Those nasty 0 calorie Asian noodles. Never. Again.

ilovelucy711

I tried to make a cheesecake that used yogurt. It was okay but texture wasn't what I hoped for.

Ghostofachance

Made a veggie lasagna using eggplant and zucchini but failed to get enough water from them before baking. As the result, I ended up making something more akin to soup than lasagna.

Moxie42

I tried making a "creamy" sun-dried tomato chicken dish in the crockpot. The recipe LIED when it said "creamy." I kept adding cornstarch, trying to force it to become creamy. Instead I ended up with shredded chicken that was somehow both extremely dry (and tasted like cornstarch) and logged with tomato-water. The sun-dried tomatoes ended up rehydrated and soggy. It's the only thing I've ever made that I had to throw away. So disappointing!

LaughHappy907

I learned the hard way you can't make a dish vegetarian by just leaving out the meat. My chicken marsala without the chicken was horrid.

jennybearlv

Chef_Barbell wrote: »

Those nasty 0 calorie Asian noodles. Never. Again.

I use those noodles as intended for making Asian dishes like sukiyaki. I'm baffled every time there is a thread about using them as a pasta substitute. Wrong texture, wrong taste, just wrong. Not even going to try it. I also didn't understand meat substitutes when I was a vegetarian. I can make tofu taste good, but I'm not going to pretend it's a burger.

My worst disaster was my attempt to make protein hot cocoa. I add the chocolate wedge to the milk on the stove top, add in a few tablespoons of unflavored whey, and start whisking. The milk heats up, the chocolate melts, but the protein powder stays clumped. Then it starts to swell up so I have hot cocoa with puffy lumps of whey floating in it. I think I can save it by putting it in my smoothie blender. Instead cocoa and minced bits of protein puffs start flowing out the bottom of my blender all over the counter. I blend it a little longer even though I'm making a mess thinking I can get it smooth, but it never happens. I have delicious hot cocoa with disgusting little chunks of chewy protein floating in it instead. I gave up, dumped it, and just made regular hot cocoa.

Jruzer

This is only "healthy" in a paleo kind of way. It's more of a dumb newlywed kind of thing.

When Mrs Jruzer and I were in our first apartment and still getting the feel of married life, I got it into my head to make bacon and eggs for breakfast. I figured I would cook the eggs in the bacon grease, you know, because that's supposed to be good.

I finished making the bacon, and I left the bacon grease in the pan. All the bacon grease. I then proceeded to crack the eggs into the large quantity of grease, because, well, I dunno, isn't that how the cowboys did it? I then cooked up a soupy, oily mess of eggs and fat. Well, more like tried to cook, because it stayed in a liquid state.

There's a solid reason why Mrs Jruzer does most of the cooking for our family, and this episode was part of the process of discovery.

JordanParkerIsTheName

Caulflower pizza crust. It seemed so good, but it was gritty, soggy, and lackluster lol. Oh the life.

amtyrell

Chia pudding i tried it uhm well my chia pet was better

Andy10725

I borrowed a juicer to play with. And immediately substitute water with carrot or cucumber juice in making pasta. I thought it would be a good way to get everyone in the family to eat something that they hate. It's not.

amusedmonkey

I don't veer too far from my known ways of preparing things just to make them healthier because I know they just won't satisfy me the same. Most of my adventures have to do with being out of something and using something else to substitute. I woke up wanting rice pudding and was out of rice. It was too early to go out and buy some so I decided to use barley without doing anything about the fact that barley is not as starchy as rice. I could have added cornstarch but the coffee had not yet warmed up my engines. Needless to say I ended up with sweet barley soup in milk with all the barley in the bottom. I salvaged it by refrigerating it and adding weetabix for weetabix and barley cereal. It was good, as good as weetabix gets, but it was no rice pudding.

sofchak

I tried replacing peanut butter with pb2 for a cookie recipe... oh God... they came out so rubbery with a plastic outter texture. My dogs loved them though!

BattleRopes

I thought that because pesto & balsamic vinaigrette's base's heavily olive oil, that mixing the 2 together'd enhance each it didn't; balsamic vinegar & pesto together's a vile concoction!

EmPhil95

jennybearlv wrote: »

Chef_Barbell wrote: »

Those nasty 0 calorie Asian noodles. Never. Again.

My worst disaster was my attempt to make protein hot cocoa. I add the chocolate wedge to the milk on the stove top, add in a few tablespoons of unflavored whey, and start whisking. The milk heats up, the chocolate melts, but the protein powder stays clumped. Then it starts to swell up so I have hot cocoa with puffy lumps of whey floating in it. I think I can save it by putting it in my smoothie blender. Instead cocoa and minced bits of protein puffs start flowing out the bottom of my blender all over the counter. I blend it a little longer even though I'm making a mess thinking I can get it smooth, but it never happens. I have delicious hot cocoa with disgusting little chunks of chewy protein floating in it instead. I gave up, dumped it, and just made regular hot cocoa.

A similar thing happened to me when I tried to add protein powder to oats haha. Whey just turns into a soggy clumpy mess when heated up. I stick with pb in my oats for protein now!

coralred1965

I make my own protein bars and always use oats. But I thought I'd give coconut flour a go. I didn't follow a recipie (I thought I was being clever).
Big mistake. They turned out like pink piles of sawdust. (I'd added Strawberries to the mix). I couldn't make them more palatable without adding more fat and sugar in the form of peanut butter and Agave nectar to bind them together. I didnt want to add any more calories or fats to a recipie which had coconut oil and flour. So I threw the lot in the bin
Expensive mistake as I'd used protein powder too.

vnb_208

EmPhil95 wrote: »

jennybearlv wrote: »

Chef_Barbell wrote: »

Those nasty 0 calorie Asian noodles. Never. Again.

My worst disaster was my attempt to make protein hot cocoa. I add the chocolate wedge to the milk on the stove top, add in a few tablespoons of unflavored whey, and start whisking. The milk heats up, the chocolate melts, but the protein powder stays clumped. Then it starts to swell up so I have hot cocoa with puffy lumps of whey floating in it. I think I can save it by putting it in my smoothie blender. Instead cocoa and minced bits of protein puffs start flowing out the bottom of my blender all over the counter. I blend it a little longer even though I'm making a mess thinking I can get it smooth, but it never happens. I have delicious hot cocoa with disgusting little chunks of chewy protein floating in it instead. I gave up, dumped it, and just made regular hot cocoa.

A similar thing happened to me when I tried to add protein powder to oats haha. Whey just turns into a soggy clumpy mess when heated up. I stick with pb in my oats for protein now!

I use pb2 & vanilla whey in my oats everyday just a suggestion- I mix the 80g old fashioned oats, 1/2 scoop of whey, 1 cup of almond milk, 12g of pb2 and sit overnight and microwave for 30 seconds in the morning works for me (makes 2 servings)

edited for typo

deannalfisher

lots of people swear by the mix protein powder into greek yogurt for an additional boost, so I did that...worst thing ever - I don't know if it was the protein powder I used (vega) or what - but it made me puke

SaraydaB

Banana protein pancakes... hated it

kristikitter

Years ago I thought I would try and drink healthy smoothies instead of meals (I know) - found out that kiwi makes my mouth itch and tastes absolutely foul in a smoothie.

moesis

Substituting tofu for meat, I've tried it a couple times ... horrible texture, bad taste ... just, yuck.

thewindandthework

My only absolute inedible disaster was trying to make doughnuts from scratch, maybe 13 years ago. I had never made doughnuts before, never deep-fried before, never used yeast before. I was a good cook and thought I could get away without doing a test run--that I'd serve my friends my first batch and they would be amazing.

And, of course, I didn't even use the recipe as written, because I wanted to make SPICED MAPLE PUMPKIN doughnuts, so I made what I thought to be appropriate changes to the recipe. And they might have been, actually, now that I think about it.

The problem is that I totally missed the part of the recipe that said I was supposed to let the doughnuts proof, so they never rose. Also, I fried them way too hot.

When my friends showed up and I let them in, smoke billowed out of the front door. They were just in time to see me pull the first batch of tiny black disappointments from the oil. My friends were gracious and in good humor. I was near tears.

I have never made doughnuts again, but I bet I could pull it off now. After a few test runs, of course.

Obviously that was before I started trying to make things healthy and/or less calorific. I haven't had any huge missteps on that front, but the first couple batches of the egg bake I make for breakfasts were rather disappointing. Overcooked and underseasoned. I've figured it out now.

brentleyann1

I tried to make banana oat breakfast muffins. While I was prepping everything my daughter are one of my bananas to where I didn't have enough. I thought I would substitute some oil. It was so greasy I couldn't get them out of the pan.

laurenebargar

Didnt follow any directions to make "healthy" eggplant Parmesan. I spent like $50 to get everything for it and it turned into a giant watery mess that even my non picky husband wouldn't touch. LOL

jessiferrrb

that million post thread about protein cheesecake . . . i've tried 3 times, only once did i find it edible. it has like 2000 glowing endorsements, but i can't make it work. switched powders, mixins, all of it. at least i can't *kitten* up halo top.

jennybearlv

vnb_208 wrote: »

EmPhil95 wrote: »

jennybearlv wrote: »

Chef_Barbell wrote: »

Those nasty 0 calorie Asian noodles. Never. Again.

My worst disaster was my attempt to make protein hot cocoa. I add the chocolate wedge to the milk on the stove top, add in a few tablespoons of unflavored whey, and start whisking. The milk heats up, the chocolate melts, but the protein powder stays clumped. Then it starts to swell up so I have hot cocoa with puffy lumps of whey floating in it. I think I can save it by putting it in my smoothie blender. Instead cocoa and minced bits of protein puffs start flowing out the bottom of my blender all over the counter. I blend it a little longer even though I'm making a mess thinking I can get it smooth, but it never happens. I have delicious hot cocoa with disgusting little chunks of chewy protein floating in it instead. I gave up, dumped it, and just made regular hot cocoa.

A similar thing happened to me when I tried to add protein powder to oats haha. Whey just turns into a soggy clumpy mess when heated up. I stick with pb in my oats for protein now!

I use pb2 & vanilla whey in my oats everyday just a suggestion- I mix the 80g old fashioned oats, 1/2 scoop of whey, 1 cup of almond milk, 12g of pb2 and sit overnight and microwave for 30 seconds in the morning works for me (makes 2 servings)

edited for typo

You just now reminded me that I should have known better than to heat up protein powder on the stove top, because I too tried making proats and they were inedible. I've heard so many glowing recommendations, so I definitely did it wrong. I will try the overnight oats method next time and hopefully not have another story to tell.