Kitchen Fail.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been cooking a lot, and I've had lots of planned posts about my successes in the kitchen!  Well, unfortunately, I have a few fails to report instead.  Now, I think it would be unfair to the author to blame my failed dinners on the cookbook and I still have high, HIGH hopes for this book.

Umm, not like the picture in the cookbook!

About five years ago I developed an allergy to gluten that caused me to break out unexpectedly in hives. Full.body.hives...  Anyway, it's been a long road trying to figure out what I can eat and the biggest surprise of all has been learning just how expensive gluten free food is!  I like to cook and bake but I like it to be easy and cheap, too! So I was thrilled when my mother-in-law gave me this book.

You just saw the result of my first attempt - butter cookies.  I'll save you the picture overload and just tell you that I rolled the dough too thin and the butter was probably too warm so they turned out ugly but still delicious!

My next attempt was ricotta gnocchi!  I'm afraid this one was both ugly and inedible...  It started off easy, with just a few ingredients.

I rolled them into a respectable looking ball.

I rolled them out into "ropes" and cut them into one inch pieces.  Stamping them with a fork was even kind of fun!

Here's where things went downhill.  I followed the instructions to drop them into boiling water 20 pieces at a time.  The book said it would take about 3 minutes to cook them and they'd rise to the top.  Well they rose to the top, but only after about 30 seconds each!  So I was faced with a dilemma, let them continue boiling for the three minutes or pull them out right as they rose to the surface?  

I tried both methods.  Unfortunately, neither produced the gnocchi I had been dreaming of!  So there you have it - a serious kitchen fail.  

I have since tried the recipe for chicken pot pie, which included making the dough from scratch.  At this point, I wasn't about to pause to take photos of another potentially failed recipe, but I am happy to report the pot pies were delish! Next time, I will take photos and share.

Do you have any go-to gluten free recipes?