Serving Vinegar!

Tonight I tried to feed my family vinegar for dinner. Well, not exactly, but close.

Months ago, I asked my mom for a recipe I remember growing up, a crock pot Sweet~n~Sour recipe. However, I didn't make it this summer since my desire to create fulfilling and delicious meals was minimal. I am FINALLY feeling better and wanted to make good food, so out came the recipe. Mom had emailed it to me, we love the convenience of technology.

Now, some of you may understand what happened next, please be patient with the explanation. Sometimes when you type in one document format and paste it to another, your different fonts transfer incomplete. Occasionally I have seen this done. The only odd discrepency I saw in my recipe was that instead of 2" pieces of carrots, it looked like 2@ pieces. All other typing looked normal, so this was easily missed, by me. Having never made the recipe on my own before, I wasn't aware that 2 3/4 cups of vinegar and 2 cups of ketchup was WAY to much. Those should have been 1/2 instead of 2. I thought the final recipe looked a little TOO saucy, and it was.

So, I called mom and asked her what I did wrong since it did SMELL quite vinegar-ish also. We tried to ammend it by adding more sugar and pineapple, but it was too late. I still had eveyone try it because I am a torturous mom, but we only got a few bites in. I hate to waste food, but what can you do at this point? I even tried to eat more thinking to myself, "I like this, I will enjoy it," and I couldn't. Self hypnosis only goes so far.

Needless to say, it was a blessing to have the most odds and ends containers in the fridge with smidgens of leftover dinneres in them that I have had all summer. I haven't had many leftovers for months, but this was perhaps the best day with the largest supply. We filled stomachs with what there was, sort of random collections, and ate some rice that should have gone under the SweetnSour, and some grapes.

I did tell them all that is was a mistake and that I WOULD be making the recipe again the right way. I warned them that all would be again required to taste the final result before decisions are made regarding final opinions of the fare. I am sure they are nervous, but they will live through one more test run. I love trying new recipes, so this isn't supposed to be a surprise to them. I am sure they will just pray that my access to vinegar next time is limited.

I hope you enjoy this humorous report. Life does that to us sometimes, right?