2024's Triumphs and Disasters in the Kitchen

DEBORAH CROMBIE: While we still have license to review 2024, I've been thinking about what worked--and what absolutely did not--in my kitchen this past year. I thought I'd post photos of some of the triumphs and disasters, but I've just looked back through my phone photos and found none of either. Problem #1 being I forget to take pictures of food I've made (my daughter takes photos of everything!) and problem #2 being that I don't know until I start eating something which category it will fall in! (Who wants a photo of a half-eaten dinner, especially if it was a bad one?)

So I will give you a photo of a small delight that took no cooking skill. My daughter gave me a box of Harry and David pears for Christmas and, oh, there is nothing like them. This was a pear salad with arugula, blue cheese, and toasted walnuts, dressed with walnut oil and lemon juice, topped with fresh-cracked black pepper. So delicious, and pretty enough that I remembered to take a photo.

And then I give you my Instant Pot, star of some of the triumphs.

I have finally learned how to make perfect Instant Pot steel cut oatmeal, and--at least 95% of the time--perfect Instant Pot beans. (Beans can be persnickety, depending on how fresh they are.) This means I can cook a pot of beans in about an hour on the weekend and we will have them for varying things all week. Black beans have been particularly spectacular.

I've also discovered, when there was a weekly glut at the farmer's market, that the Instant Pot is great for cooking green beans. A cup of water, the beans on a trivet, set timer for 1 minute, then instant release. If you like them a little snappier or are going to finish them in a saute pan, pull the plug sooner. (My Instant Pot doesn't do less than a minute--I don't know if others are more flexible.) A win! Picky husband now eats green beans.

Broccoli in the Instant Pot goes in the failure category. Even pulling the plug when the pot hits pressure and instantly releasing and taking them out resulted in mushy broccoli. Sigh.

Some other wins? Lemony Pearl Barley Soup by Hetty Liu McKinnon. I love this so much I dream about it. Seriously. I think I'll make it again this week. (Note: I learned from experience that if the barley is whole rather than processed, it takes a LOT longer then the recipe says. Also, make sure the vegetable stock is pale. A dark one, like Trader Joe's, will ruin the look and the taste of the soup.)

I have made perfect seared scallops. So simple, but so hard to get just right. (Watch how many attempts chefs throw out on cooking shows.)

Back before Christmas I made a tiny PERFECT rack of lamb. It only weighed a pound and I thought there was no way I could get it done on the outside without overcooking the inside, but I did. Again, simple, but so good.

Ditto shrimp and grits, and my first attempt at Pasta Amatriciana. (Inspired by Stanley Tucci, I wanted to learn to cook some traditional Italian pastas.)

On the failure side, skillet sizzled cornbread that I've been making for thirty years recently came out...brown. Not just nicely browned on the outside, but brown all the way though. It didn't really taste bad, just very unappealing.

The turkey and wild rice soup I made after Thanksgiving. This was something I'd made before and loved but something this time just did not work. Ugh.

And the pork roast for Christmas dinner!! I used this really complicated recipe that was supposed to give you crisp crackling, but it was so much trouble and in the end the roast was dry, the crackling NOT crisp, and it was horribly salty. I should have stuck with Jamie Oliver. Or coughed up the big bucks for a standing rib roast. Then our Yorkshire puddings collapsed into pancakes! So disappointing, and my first-ever failure with Jamie's Yorkshire pudding recipe. Oh, well, it was all great fun, and it was the company that mattered most.

How about it, Reddies? Any notable successes or failures in your 2024 kitchen?