Cooking Failuresss

Well, I understand that cooking is not all about success but having 3 failures in a row within one dinner preparation is devastating.

I started with ambicious plan to have home baked bread with almost instant (well, it's instant but I have to heat it up) tomato soup and grill pork (had some really nice fresh pork slices).

First of all, bread baking. Everything goes well until the moment when the baking time is up but the bread is not 'expanding'. I noticed something wrong when the bread dough doesn't 'expand' but thought it might be okay after I subject it to oven heat. I was wrong. The 'bread' (if I can still call it bread) are so solid that I can use it as self defense weapon. Outer part is crunchy but it's absolutely 'raw' on the inside. Root cause: the yeast is expired!

While I was baking the bread, I grill the pork together as well, thought that I'm capable of multi-tasking, which is not (at all). I pre-marinated the pork with some crushed black peppers, salt & paprika and put it into the oven half way through bread baking time, planning to grill it for 10minutes so it can be ready the same time as the bread.

Unfortunately, I didn't consider of the fact that the bread could be 'problematic' so I added another 10minute to try to bake the bread further when it's not expanding much, forgetting all about the pork. So I end up with 'raw' bread & over-cooked, ultra dry pork.

So what can go wrong with instant tomato soup? Well, simple as: choosing the wrong brand of instant soup!!! It turns out to be on the salty side. At the end of the day, my dinner was crunchy bread 'skin' with salty tomato soup & ultra dry grilled pork. After battling with the super dry pork with my fork & knife, then chew endless time in my mouth but still find it difficult to swallow, I have to give up.

The 'food' (if I can still clasified them as food) were so bad that I'm so glad I didn't take any pictures because I won't have the courage to publish them. Conclusion: I shall never multitask, especially trying to integrate baking + grilling at a single time and never buy that particular brand of tomato soup again!