Not your picture perfect recipe by far! The food was so bad that none of us wanted to eat it but no one knew what to say. "This tastes like feet and I don't want it." That would have been something true to say.

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I'm not the type of person who is going to lie to you Steemian friends.

I'm not going to coat things in chocolate (OK, yes I am going to do that literally but not figuratively!)
I could have posted this picture with the recipe and you would have never known the troubles I have seen (cue Zazu,the bird from Lion King singing in his cage... noooo body knows the trouble I've seennnn 🎵)
But that is not my style, you should know me by now. Here's the nitty gritty of this recipe gone oh-so-terribly-wrong!

For the last few days I have been daydreaming about creating some vegan (false smoked salmon) sushi. At one of my favorite restaurants, I found rolls made with papaya as the salmon, with a smoky flavour and the very same texture I used to know and love. Not only that, but the cream "cheeze" made from nuts was almost differentiable from the dairy-kind. Pair all that with some nori sheets and rice and it was a dream come true from me since sushi was my biggest lush back before I changed my diet. I used to be a frequent over-indulger at every all-you-can-eat-sushi place around the globe and could never ever seem to get enough Philli rolls to satisfy my cravings!

Things started out good, I had nothing to fear. I am usually pretty gifted in the way of food prep so I thought I could handle this no problem. Sure it was a pretty big undertaking since I have never done it before but I was confident and enthusiastic. I soaked my rice (I decided to go for red rice opposed to the starchy sushi rice-ps: soaking grains makes them more digestible and assimilate easier into the body.) I marinated my "salmon", I soaked my cashews for my "cheeze", I got the rest of the ingredients at the market and I was full speed ahead to plate this wonderful dish!

Here's the marinating process for the salmon: (the part that worked out)

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I was so optimistic, I even had a friend joining for dinner! Not only that, but he was contributing some cash to the dish as it was proving to be pretty pricey (compared to normal) due to my exotic import ingredients (nori, tamari, liquid aminos...)

So as I was smiling wildly at the market telling him about how great dinner was going to be and sending him to grab me some coconut yogurt for the cream cheeze... I must have got over confident.

I got home and got completely sidetracked in all of the food I had just bought! I was over zealous about this week's Culinary Challenge- I made chocolate-covered-strawberry cheesecake bites (which are amazing by the way!) I probably used up all of my creativity on them since clearly something went wrong after ;)

I realized I had bought much more food than usual, this lead me to feel pressured to use said ingredients and so into the kitchen I disappeared for the rest of the day!

Lunch was fantastic you guys! It was seriously so delicious! I was on a high from my creation now eager to start something else and cue my entry for this week's competition... that also went incredibly well. I was feeling pretty dang good but I have to admit, I started to lose steam (not Steem!) ;) which wasn't a good thing because I had a lot of expectations riding on that dinner.

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First of all, standing there after hours of completing my entry for SCC, I realized I had no will, desire or energy to try to roll these bad boys so that wasn't great. Cue googling 'easy sushi hacks'... that didn't go very far.

Then, I realized I had to actually cook the rice (which had escaped my mind with it soaking!) so cooking the rice became a thing happening in my small kitchen.

Then, I thought I should make the cheeze (my favourite part!) I went into the fridge to get the (necessarily soaked) cashews and OOPS, I used them for my challenge! NOOOOOO!

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Worth it though!

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Well, that's OK thought optimistically! I am pretty traveled in the kitchen (normally) I can easily find a substitute... nottaproblem.

So here's where things start to hit the fan hard.

I decided that because once I had made an exceptionally on point rendition of sour cream with tofu that I should use my fresh tempe (fermented soy beans) in replacement of my cashews. I genuinely thought through the haze of my tired mind that this was going to work out fantastically.

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Oh dear me that was so opposite from true.

That stuff was on fire with nasty. Fermented soy beans meets cultured coconut... just do not try this at home whatever you do. My appetitive went flying out the window but I thought maybe it would taste good within the rolls and I am no quitter so I continued on.

The spiced and marinated papaya 'salmon' was actually really good on it's own (despite the papaya itself not being the best ever) so I was feeling optimistic that it would save the dish.

Feeling rushed as it was approaching 7pm by this time, I started to try to knock it out as fast as I could, wanting to get onto Steemit to see what everyone else was up to with their days while I'm over here making the world's worst cheeze.

Gathering my ingredients, I decided to follow through with my vision.

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I slapped some of the rice onto the first nori roll and realized quickly that it was just not going to cut it. Being quick to improvise, I got out bowls and decided to make sushi bowls instead of sushi rolls. That all looked like it was working out so I got excited again. What's the difference between all the same stuff in one place or the other anyway? Maybe it would work out after all!

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NEWS FLASH: HUGE DIFFERENCE!

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Alright, if you took a bite of this mixture, completely mixed up and you happened to get the right combo of everything which was more rice, papaya, nori, less cheeze then it was good! It wasn't up to par with my expectations but it was good.

If you screwed up and got an uneven bite... well that was just not fun for anyone. Luckily I have a dog... she just had herself a nice serving of probiotics since we sure weren't eating it.

It was disappointing but luckily, we could laugh about it and I kick myself in the butt for the cheeze part ruining it. I even bet that if I would have just rolled the dang things, it would have been distributed enough to still taste good.

Now I have something to challenge me again next time! This was a great reminder about improvisation, taking a break when I need one and having fun, removing expectations from my creative area.

I hope you all will enjoy this.

We see too much perfect sometimes and I want you all to know that we all make mistakes, things can go wrong to anyone! Not every dish is going to turn out to be that IG professional piece that gets shared a million times!

Here's my recipe gone wrong. Has this ever happened to you?

PS: I did get a nice shot (well actually, I was pouting... my friend made sure to take it for me (that was before he tried it!)

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I generally share delicious recipes for you to enjoy but in this case, unless you want to see if you can conquer this beast, maybe avoid at all costs ;)

I did get my groove back today however! I made a tasty masala curry for lunch, some out of this world strawberry, coconut cream pie anddd finally a German dish inspired by a friend of mine. All of which I will share with you as soon as I have time to type them out. For now, take a gander at the pie in case this post has you skeptical of me now ;)

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Between the strawberry cheesecake and the coconut cream pie, I think I have made up for this crime against food ;)
I hope you get a chance to check these recipes out! The (vegan/gluten-free) chocolate strawberry cheesecake recipe is here and the cream pie recipe will be out ASAP! I can't decide which one I like more (I am just thankful they don't taste anything like my sushi! Maybe I should stick to desserts, i think I get along better with them) 😍💜🍰

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Sending you love through food (and reminding you it's not always a perfect dreamland making these recipes) I hope you'll keep me around anyway ;)
XO,