Dinner Fail

We all have them sometimes - those days where all the little things that could go wrong, do go wrong.  Nothing *big* goes wrong on those days, but all the little things seem to pile up in your brain until you end up in a grumpy mood.

I had one of those days earlier this week, and the little things culminated in a dinner failure.  It was, unfortunately, not the kind of dinner failure where you throw up your hands and order in.  No, it was the kind of failure where you just sit and eat it anyway, because it just isn't worth it to fight the inevitable.

The day started with all of us getting up early, as partner had to work early that day.  Everyone was grumpy and things just rolled out from there.
By the time I had picked up the baby from daycare, and gotten home, I got a message from partner that he was also going to be at work late, so I was on my own to get dinner started.
I decided that I was going to try a new oven-baked falafel recipe, since it would require minimal effort once the falafels were put together.

I couldn't find the recipe.

I did find a pan-fried falafel recipe, so I decided to just run with that.  I thought I would do a celery root mash and a salad on the side to round things out.  Sounds good right?

While munchkin did help with the salad (I give her a big bowl and some lettuce leaves - she loves to rip them up and put them in the bowl), by the time her part was completed, she was tired, grumpy and hungry.  So, here I am, trying to cook with a one year old hanging off the back of my knees as she would not be distracted by anything, including her favourite crackers.

I forgot to add a potato to the cooking celery root, so the mash ended up pretty lumpy.  I also put too much milk in, making it watery as well.

For the falafels, I wasn't about to hand mash the ingredients with the munchkin on my leg, and I don't have a food processor.  I decided to try the hand blender, which resulted in a sort of paste.  I had to add double the amount of flour the recipe called for in order to get it 'good enough' in texture and consistency to fry.

The cucumber I was going to use for the salad went mouldy, so the salad ended up being lettuce, carrot and overripe avocado.

In the end, the only thing that worked out was the tahini dipping sauce I made to go with the falafels (and even that was runnier than I would have liked).

By the time partner came home (just as dinner was finished cooking), I think I looked something like this:

In the end, we all had full bellies, if unsatisfied tastebuds.

Fortunately, these days don't happen too often, but when they do, I'm really glad when the following day turns out better.