Date Night with Myself

So everyone had gone fishing for the day, and I had opted to hang out at the house by myself.

What better to do than cook a supremely fancy meal?

I had gotten all my other stuff done, and as I was readying to satisfy the rumblies in my tummy, a thought dawned on me: I should make something fancy!!!

I began sifting through the Interwebs for something good based on some of the stuff in my kitchen--things like zucchini, beef, corn, tomatoes, and some of the best darn Dunkin' Donuts Glazed Chocolate Doughnut flavored coffee you've ever tasted.

My curiosity piqued when I stumbled upon something called Piroshki.  Turns out it was a sort of Russian dish consisting of dough pockets filled with various meats and vegetables.

Much like a Hot Pocket, but without a side order of Pepto!

I set to work on a recipe I found on Allrecipes, attempting to follow it as closely as possible.

I mean, I'm all for making something my own way IF I know the in's and out's of what I'm making.  Say, pasta, for example.  But I'd never even heard of Piroshki.

Granted, I had to work with what I had, since the recipe called for a few different vegetables and such, but they weren't detrimental to the outcome of the dish.

At least, I hadn't thought so.

I was having an absolute BALL that night.  I don't mind sharing the kitchen, and I can't really afford not to going into my field of career choice, but there's just something so enjoyable about having free reign of the kitchen all.  To.  Yourself.  You can make whatever you want, however you want, and reap the rewards and/or consequences all for your own. You can go at your own pace.  And as soon as you sit your dish down on the table, everyone immediately knows: "Oh yeah.  Name here cooked this."

Plus, nobody can complain about your choice of music while you work.  I found myself on a binge of hilarious video game music video parodies by Hiimrawn on Youtube.  Fellow gamers, if you haven't heard of him, I'd fix that.  Dude's a genius.  Start with the Zelda Rap.

ANYWAY, I thought the cooking was coming along pretty well.  I had my ground beef and vegetables all wrapped up in dough pockets and baking, my zucchinis were halved, hollowed, and stuffed with MORE vegetables, and I even found a simple sponge cake recipe that utilized coffee.

SCORE!

Finally, while everything was finishing up baking or staying warm in the microwave, I ran and dolled myself up.

Personally, I don't think I clean up too badly!

I had already set up the table, and everything was ready to be served.

Yes, sir, I was ready to dine on some Class-A, 5 star International cuisine.

It.  Was.  Terrible.

First of all, the Piroshki pockets were hard and crunchy, almost to the point of being painful to eat.  The meat and veggies inside were ridiculously bland.  As it turns out, I hate zucchini in all forms, even when stuffed.  My sponge cake ended up hardening on the outside and staying raw on the inside, but it actually tasted pretty good.

So, in the end, I just nommed on chunks of sponge cake brittle and watched Avatar: The Last Airbender on the laptop.  Not a bad way to end date night.

This was definitely a learning experience, and the more I look back on it, the more things I realize didn't go over well. 

I didn't season the meat well, and my pairings of vegetables were just poor choices.  

I should have heeded the warnings about the dough on the website, since it had no yeast and no rest time.  Evidently, Piroshki are supposed to be more of a bread pocket than a tortilla/pizza roll pocket.

Not only that, but it could definitely have used some cheese.  

The stuffed zucchini should have been nixed altogether and replaced with something better, like a rice-stuffed tomato.

And I don't know WHAT happened with my sponge cake, I'm guessing it had to do with the heat and the temperature I baked it at.  Or the egg.  I scold myself for it, but I cut the recipe down for about 1 person, which called for an egg yolk AND an egg white, and I only used the yolk.  I now realize that it doesn't work like that.

But the flavor was phenominal!

All in all, I had a lot of fun and learned a good deal about cooking from this.  And I definitely won't refrain from trying something like this again, knowing what I know now.

My question for you is: what would YOU have done differently for Date Night Alone?  Tell me in the comments!!

ECHO out.