Trust your instincts

I did it again. I can't believe it. How many times can a girl tell herself to trust her instincts? Especially in the kitchen. It started off so innocently. Zipping through blogs, looking for some inspiration, something fun, something different. Wow! This sounds great. A basic chicken dish that will please everyone. You will like it soooo much, you'll want to make extra to freeze! All my friends will be dying for the recipe! So here's the idea: make a huge amount of this dish, then allow guests, or unsuspecting family members to put there own final touches to individual servings. Lots of little condiments, fruit, vegetables, etc. I know, I know - how could I resist such a tempting idea? Make everyone in my family happy at the same time? It's never happened before. Somebody is always the looser at our dinner table. Unconsciously I must have know something was kooky - I did not attempt to make this until Mr. Smoothy had departed on his annual golf weekend. I purchased the ingredients 2 days before getting down to it - what's the matter? What's holding me back? Something about the ingredients chosen, I'd never mixed these two main things together before. Is there a reason I've never seen this before? Something about the time - 1.5 hours in the oven for boneless breasts of chicken? The spice mixture sounded somewhat right, maybe that's what would pull it all together? Is that why it needed all that time in the oven? To mellow the mix and bring it all together? Well I was right. It was hardly worth the effort or time to make the darned thing. Talk about a dish that needed some pizzaz. No wonder someone had come up with the idea of adding all those little things on top, it was barely palatable without. Everyone had to keep on adding those little things on top. We ended up eating condiments, not chicken! My son and daughter look at me twice now if I talk about trying out a new recipe from an unfamiliar blog. I can see then looking at each other and saying it all with their eyes "remember the chicken?" I still have the lasagne-sized pan (full) in my refrigerator. I can't bear the idea of dealing with it. Besides, it's there as a reminder. TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS!