Soup Failures.

Does anyone have any idea how frustrating it can be to be a food blogger? The answer is probably no. Nobody writes about it. Each of those food blogs you read with the amazingly delicious pictures never let you know how frustratingly dumb you feel when you spend hours following a recipe, making your own little tweaks, attempting to learn how to make something delicious, and wind up with a huge pot of failure.

It’s frustrating. Maddening! Usually I can make something, usually in the cooking category (I’ve got blind baking confidence), and it’ll come up a little bland. Then I can spice it up and it’ll taste delicious! Usually butter is the trick.

HOWEVER. In my recent days I have attempted TWO soups, and they have both resulted in falling very short of my not-so-insane standards.

Maybe they’re a little insane, because they’re my cooking standards. Don’t we all have crazy standards for the flavor of our food?

The first was this recipe for Roasted Tomato Basil Soup.

Their picture is absolutely gorgeous and I want to dive face first into that soup.

My picture? LOOKS AWFUL. I shouldn’t even have my picture in a post linking to their gorgeousness.

It’s god awful. GRANTED….I didn’t get the right tomatoes (found out afterwards) (I may have been blinded by the $1.29/lb sign over these tomatoes) (I admit nothing!) and some kind of freeze/combination of animals managed to murder my fresh basil plants, so I had to use dried.

It was basically spaghetti sauce in a bowl. Not what I wanted, and pureed too much! I don’t think I’ll be using an immersion blender after my exploits.

I did everything I was supposed to, the tomatoes looked gorgeous coming out of the oven.

Then I attempted to make the Pioneer Woman’s perfect potato soup, and it came out okay.

Still, something was left to be desired. I’m not exactly happy about the way these soups came out. I even asked on FaceBook about how to make soups better!

Since my friends are wonderful (and since I have a mild obsession with Nigella Lawson), I was able to take a step back and realize that mistakes are always made in the kitchen. Just because I’m actually good at certain things right now doesn’t mean I’ll be good at it all.

For now I will marvel at my collection of butter in the freezer.

Maybe not adding it to the soup was my problem?

I suppose we’ll see when I have to make it again.