After the Neelys’ fabulous potato salad, I was all geared up to try another salad. Ina Garten promised her Carrot Salad was not your ordinary carrot salad but sadly, I have to disagree. I found it quite boring and unsurprising when it comes to flavour.
Instead of raisins I used dried cranberries and plumped them in boiling water. This is one of the reasons I thought I would like the salad, a nice touch.
Another reason, adding pineapple. I love pineapple! The problem? The dressing was just mayonnaise, sour cream, sugar and salt. Um, that is not enough for me, even with the addition of fruit. You do also add some lemon juice to the carrots but that is never enough of a “pow” for me.
A lot of this ended up in the compost, I tried to eat it because it was good for me but I will not be making this again. I suppose if you want ordinary this recipe gets three out of five wooden spoons but for me, I personally give it two. So sad, I love Ina!
Oh well, they can’t all be winners!
Thank you for sharing your failed recipes. You’d think a Barefoot recipe would be a winner but I’m glad I didn’t waste my ingredients on this one, eh? The pictures are great though 🙂
Maybe adding some pineapple juice or the cranberry water to the dressing would add some pizazz. Maybe some nuts for crunch too.
I am glad people appreciate me also including recipes that don’t work, I think it is important to share failures as well as successes. I am sure for some people this is a lovely basic salad which is great, it’s just not the salad for me. BTW, adding nuts is a great idea!
I love hearing all about your foodie adventures, even the not so good ones. I trust your taste and judgement so when Suzie says it’s a no go, then I know I probably wouldn’t like it either. The nuts idea is a good one though, and that dressing needs some spice, perhaps a mild curry or something.