Experimentation

I was gone this past weekend to the Home Educators Association of Virginia's annual conference.  It was great.  One of the greatest things was not having to cook or clean up after myself.  However, that also meant that I was at the mercy of the cook at whatever restaurant I visited.

The first night, I ate in the hotel restaurant.  Meh.  It was edible.  I wouldn't eat there again.  The next day I had Thai food.  I loved it.  I'm not sure how authentic it was, but it was delicious.  I had crab wontons and lettuce wraps.  I want to try making them at home.  How hard could it really be?  I have wonderful lettuce in the garden, and the basic ingredients for the filling can't be that hard to find, right?  Stop laughing at me...I really want to try it!!

The next evening I had a yummy burger for dinner.  However, even though it was tasty, it did leave much to be desired.  Of the two slices of bacon, only one was really cooked all the way.  The cheese had fallen off.  The bun was much to big for the burger.  Now I'm thinking of all the different burgers I could make at home.  Burgers with onion rings (skinny) and barbecue sauce and pepper jack cheese.  Or a mushroom, onion, and provolone burger.  My mind is racing!

Part of my experimentation train of thought comes indirectly from a speaker at the convention.  She was talking about decreasing your grocery bill.  Her first suggestion was to make a budget.  <sigh>  I don't do them.  BUT, what I did do was take the amount I spent per month (yay, Quicken!) and divided it by six (the number of people in our family) and then by 90 (the number of meals we eat in a month.  I discovered I spend approximately $1.48/person/meal.  I think that's awfully good.  And we eat WELL.

All that to say I think I'm entitled to a bit of experimentation.  Especially if it saves me $15 a meal for ONE person for Thai food and $10 for ONE burger.

Do you experiment?  Have you had any really good ones?  How about bad ones?  Let us learn from your mistakes!