I try to get creative when I'm cooking which I do well if I'm cooking cause my house has a lot of seasonings, though it doesn't always come out as planned. My most infamous culinary failure was probably trying to make orange-flavored condensed milk. I mixed orange juice and condensed milk in a small pot and put it on a simmer and added some orange zest. It turned out all curdled though it did have an orange flavor to it.
Also, for the longest time, I didn't know you were supposed to boil green beans and hit them with an ice bath afterwards. My mom always washed them and then threw them in a wok to stir-fry. She also never salted boiling water, which I always do now.
Speaking of my mom, she has a burning hatred of deep-frying foods. If there's a large amount of oil involved, she's against it, though that doesn't stop her from eating and trying to make you tiao and you bing, Chinese breakfast foods that are just large fried pieces of thin dough that puff up immensely in oil. But I digress, she hates it when I want to try deep-frying something, so whenever she's out on a trip, I try experiment with deep-frying. No grease fires so far!
