Sequestration Meal #416

 

Occasionally, a beautiful meal (visually) turns out to be horrendous (in terms of taste). Unfortunately, that's what we have here. This is mashed potatoes with vegan cream gravy, a drop biscuit, broccoli, and fried oyster mushrooms.

To be fair, the potatoes, broccoli, and the biscuit were all pretty good. It was the fried mushrooms and the gravy I made from the drippings that turned out to be awful. I'm pretty bummed about that on one level, because oyster mushrooms are pricey and they were a lot of trouble to make. Plus, they had cashews in the batter, which made them even pricier. I was surprised that they were awful, since it was a chickpea flour-based breading and that's usually really delicious, but it wasn't to be. I had carefully budgeted to allow myself to try this recipe, and I felt, for a moment, like I had wasted my splurge budget. Phooey.

However, this is actually good news! I no longer have to wonder what it would be like if I made fried oyster mushrooms, I never have to pay through the nose for this specific disappointment again, and I don't have to go through all the trouble and generate all the dishes it would take to make them again. I have checked this off my list. That was probably worth $5.

The biscuits, meanwhile, were so easy and still delicious! I wished they were larger, but that's my fault for not using (or owning) a larger cookie scoop to dole out the batter. I used the recipe from Simply Whisked, and I would definitely make them again. In terms of the eating, I think I prefer the kind you roll out and cut, but when a shortcut makes something perfectly serviceable, and it's the difference between having biscuits and not having biscuits, you go with the easy thing.

If you like fried oyster mushrooms, maybe you can tell me where I went wrong here! But I probably won't try this again unless someone else does the preparing for me. Life is too short for hard, expensive, horrible food.