I ask because I attempted a recipe for vegan "meatballs" today. The base was uncooked red lentils, which raised an eyebrow. Shocker, they tasted like raw red lentils (spices and sauce notwithstanding). The recipe also called for baking soda, so they exploded a little in the tomato sauce due to the acidity. 2/10 looking for a different recipe.
I wouldn't say it's my worst, though. One time I tried to hard boil an egg in the microwave. With the shell still on.
What's a culinary project that didn't go your way?
This was ~10 years ago, before I was :im-vegan:, and I was living in Japan doing a study abroad thing, and it was Thanksgiving. Obviously, Japan doesn't do Thanksgiving, and it's hard to find a lot of Thanksgiving classics, and Japanese food tends not to leave you feeling stuffed. So I figured, I can either have a boring sad day feeling homesick... or I can make it memorable.
One of the stranger things they sold at the local grocery was squid, like whole squid, and I'd never had it before. I decided to try it, because Thanksgiving squid would be memorable, and it was. A Japanese cookbook I had recommended making it with radishes, so I did.
Unfortunately, I had no idea how to prepare squid or which parts are edible, and I threw away more than I had to, and I also sort of... ruptured some ink sacs. The ink soaked into everything but especially the radishes, and for some reason I was like, "This is fine" up to when I actually tried eating it. The squid itself was semi-ok but the ink-soaked radishes were definitely not.
I ended up having a PB&J for dinner. At least I got a story out of it I guess.