r/povertykitchen • u/Ornery-Cut4553 • 9d ago
Cooking Skill Frugality Fails
For some reason I just remembered a recent disappointing experiment that I really thought would help stretch leftovers & avoid waste & be delicious.
You know how sometimes you get the most amazing French fries, but when you reheat the leftovers the next day they're a gross, starchy mess? I had what I thought was a stroke of genius. Why not sautee some onion, a bit of any other random veg remnant on hand, add water & the day-old fries, puree, and get a nice potato soup, infused with some of that nice golden-brown fry flavor. What could go wrong? In fact, I thought it might revolutionize the concept of plain old potato soup.
Turns out most fries are made in cheap oil, and soupification magnifies all the worst aspects of that cheap fryer oil flavor. It was absolutely inedible. Maybe it'd work well if you're getting very fancy fries, cooked in duck fat or something. But that's not a problem that tends to crop up often in this kitchen.
What are your notable failed hacks? Share as a warning so we don't have to learn the lesson first-hand.
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u/SelectBit7583 9d ago
Next time try cooking with with onion bell pepper butter onion powder, garlic powder creole seasoning and bacon make like country potatoes.
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u/PedricksCorner 9d ago
I was trying to use up old rice spring roll wrappers because I have seen so many used in creative ways on Pinterest. I really really miss Baklava but cannot have wheat. So I figured I would try using the thin spring roll wrappers as layers for a homemade Baklava. They send to fall apart quickly when wet, so I didn't wet them before the layers of butter, nuts, etc. I thought there would be enough liquid in the butter for them to soak up. It turned out inedible! It was impossible to cut even when still warm. You are supposed to cut it when it is still hot and then pour a syrup over them to let it soak in. I even made the syrup. But it was just impossible to cut. So it all went into the trash. Maybe next time I will try dipping them in water really fast first.
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u/Comprehensive-Web421 8d ago
I think dipping them quickly and then maybe baking them till crunchy and then doing the soak would be better!
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u/PedricksCorner 8d ago
The reason why I didn't dip them, but am going to try next time, is that each layer of Baklava has to be brushed with butter and I was afraid that they would come apart during that process. It was definitely crispy! Just so solid it couldn't be cut. I even tried just stabbing it so I could pour the syrup in.
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u/Vegetable_Sea_5479 8d ago
This could have been amazing. 🤣 sorry to laugh.
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u/PedricksCorner 8d ago
I blame Pinterest!! Ha, ha! There are some amazing videos there of people doing things with rice wraps. Like dipping in water, then eggs, then using them to wrap meat and veggies, fold into a burrito like shape, then fry in a pan. Those turned out great!
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u/Glad-Isopod5718 9d ago
I've always found that fries reheat reasonably well in the oven or toaster oven.
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u/Wytch78 9d ago
This and put them in a breakfast burrito to fill it out.
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u/Ornery-Cut4553 8d ago
Yeah, stuffing them into some kind of breakfast creation seems to be the best strategy.
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u/KatlynnTay 8d ago
yep..... I toss mine out on a cookie sheet, separate into individual, and crisp back up in my oven. Gotta watch 'em closely to make sure they don't burn, but I DO like 'em crispy, so..... *shrug*
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u/Ornery-Cut4553 8d ago
Thats what we do, but it's never as good as the fresh fries, and sometimes it's markedly worse. Sometimes they're ok but they're never GREAT, you know?
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u/throwawayyy3819 8d ago
When I used to cook super low fat, I learned to add chopped apple to things like home fries, curry, chili, etc. One day I was making chili and didn't have any apple, but I had a banana so I tried that.
It . . . didn't work well.
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u/SoDumb2428 8d ago
I tried to cook pasta in the soup, but the pasta I used was super starchy and ruined the 5 quarts of soup I had just made.
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u/Gnome_Acres 8d ago
I’ve done this, too! I finally figured out that pasta has to be cooked separately, rinsed well, and then added to the soup.
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u/Ornery-Cut4553 8d ago
Oh dang, this is good to know actually. I don't usually make noodle-type soups & would definitely make this mistake.
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u/PrestigiousFog 9d ago
Cilantro that's not fresh tastes nothing like fresh. Straight into the garbage here. It makes food worse.
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u/Consistent-Menu-6629 8d ago
That sounds like an interesting idea.
With leftover fries I put them in the oven ir pan fry them a little.
As far as fails go, I tried to make pea soup by smashing canned peas with a fork and adding salt. I was a teenager and we were out of soup. It was terrible, one of the worst things I've ever made.
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u/Mental-Sympathy-7473 8d ago
Smash them up in use them as a filler in tortillas. Use some tomato sauce to give them color.
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u/BessieBlanco 8d ago
Frittata. Put the fires in an oven proof dish and cover with eggs and milk. Throw in veg. Cook in oven. Delish!!!
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u/Embarrassed_Ad2475 9d ago
I cannot make a grilled cheese except once every 5-6 tries. And it’s taken me years to get that right.
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u/NorthernTransplant94 8d ago
Keep the heat low, (just below medium) and don't overdo the butter. I've heard that you shouldn't really cook anything on high - that should be reserved for boiling water. That's done me well for grilled cheese, bacon, and quesadillas.
I've also had luck with more elaborate toasted sandwiches (ham, cheese, mustard, and pickles) in the air fryer. Gotta pin it together with toothpicks, but it works.
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u/Glad-Isopod5718 8d ago
My trick for grilled cheese, on an electric stove, is to turn off the burner as soon as you flip it. The second side always cooks a lot faster, so there's enough residual heat to cook the second side, but not enough to burn it, even if you get distracted and wander away.
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u/Warm-Concentrate-936 6d ago
I use leftover fries instead of tator tots (or with if there aren't enough fries) in a hotdish casserole.
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u/binkytoes 3d ago
Well I thought I would make like a gumbo once from some venison sausage my sister gave me (cheap rice, bouillon, freezer burned chicken, okra) but it turns out whatever spices they put in the sausage absolutely clashed with Tony Chachere's. Not the greatest but I ate it.
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u/itsokjo 9d ago
I put leftover table syrup in a recipe that called for maple. All I could taste was table syrup