Fails to Follow Instructions

That line may have appeared in more than one of my grade-school report cards. Because sometimes, in my enthusiasm, I leap two or three steps ahead of the instructions and have to undo things. Ctrl+Z is my friend. In the real world, however, things can sometimes spin wildly off the rails.

A few months ago, my niece, whose baby was then a newborn, posted that she had "accomplished one thing today." She attached a picture of what she had achieved:


Chicken Broccoli Braid
She described it as "not as fancy as it looks."

Doesn't that look scrumptious? So many of us commented on it that she finally posted a blog about it, complete with recipe and instructions.

Today, I finally had all the ingredients lined up along with the time to prepare a decent meal, so I dove right in. The filling really is pretty simple - chicken, broccoli, sweet red pepper, and cheddar.

Diane's instructions explained that she had "laid the triangles of crescent dough out, corners overlapping, on a circular baking stone." I figured it would just "come to me" when I finally had the pastry open.

We popped open the crescent-roll dough (it's a little alarming when food explodes out of its container, isn't it?). The triangles immediately fell apart into segments of dough. I tried to patch them into something resembling triangles. I couldn't figure out how to overlap the triangles. I forgot to brush the pastry with egg white before sprinkling the slivered almonds. It then became clear that, well ... I was headed for extreme failure. So I winged it and decided that, even if it looked like a dog's breakfast, it would still taste good.

Here's what I ended up with:


Lopsided Chicken Broccoli ... Thing

It's not quite horrific and it did taste yummy (except for the uncooked dough underneath all that filling), but it sure isn't the work of art that Diane made. Maybe she'll post some in-progress pictures next time she makes it?