ColumnAren’t some food recipes simply overdone?

I love recipes. I love looking at cookbooks. I even write recipes. The internet abounds with recipes, which should make someone like me thrilled. But as time goes on, I have decided one thing: there are few internet food recipes that I like.

A handful are good, but I find myself doing more eye rolling than exclamations of “I want to make that!”

Cooking should be fun. Instinctual even. A recipe should be solid, not trendy. After all, we don’t need more food porn, we need more real food.

Some recipes are overdone – just Google “kale chips” – and others have a cult following that has me wondering if we care about food or if we care about things that just look cute.

And because of that I have come up with the official list of overdone food recipes. Some are recipes we could live without simply because the foods themselves are nothing complicated, and others are recipes for foods we should never make again.

1. [Insert dish here] top With a Fried Egg

Add an egg to anything and it’s delicious. But a recipe with an egg added to it is far from revolutionary. In fact, shouldn’t putting a fried egg on top of something simply be instinctual?

2. [Insert topping 1here ] and [insert topping 2 here] Toast

A homemade tapenade spread on a good piece of bread is one of the tastiest snacks out there. But does it need it’s own recipe? It’s toast, people. Toast. Even your college-aged cousin who is living off of peanut butter and rice knows how to make toast.

3. [Insert leafy green here] and [insert fancy fruit here] Smoothie

Smoothies are delicious–a good way to start a morning. But are smoothie recipes revolutionary? Congratulations, you know how to use a blender. And how to combine flavors!

4. Cakes Baked in Things

A perfectly decent cake, put it in a cute object and you get a ruined recipe. I’m looking at you, mug cakes.

5. Unicorn Poop Cookies

No. Absolutely not.

6. Cookie Shot Glasses

This is sort of like Cakes Baked in Things. Except that you’re baking cookies in the shape of shot glasses. I miss batches of regular cookies.

7. Things on a Stick

Cake pops, brownies on a stick, fried chicken on a stick? Ah yes, because you woke up this morning and thought to yourself, “I know a creative ingredient to add: a stick!” Unless you go and forage some twigs, then maybe we can get excited.

8. [Insert sandwich/wrap/etc here] with Mashed Avocado

“So you take a fork, mash the avocado and add it to your dish. Amazing isn’t it!?”

9. Crazy Cupacke Fillings

“Don’t worry sweetheart, it’s healthy because it’s broccoli in a cupcake!”

Related on EcoSalon

Less Food Porn, More Food Please: Foodie Underground

Why Are We Food Porn Obsessed?

The Glucose Overdose of Cupcakes

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: Taryn

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