I think that if you are going to experiment on people, you shouldn't always let them know that you are doing it. It ruins the experiment, because it isn't a controlled test. How do you know that the results are really the results if the test subject knows that they are being experimented on? You don't know.
Which brings me to one of my coworkers, I will call her Experiment 452, mostly because I would not want to embarrass her by the multiple tests that have been ran through her programing without her knowing. This is the one case, where I have let the test subject pick the experiment that she was going to partake of. There are mixed results.
The version that I used was a picture less paper back, that is just recipes. It is a very compact version and really handy if you needed to take it traveling with you to the grocery store, or to work. I let Experiment 452 pick out several recipes that they would be inclined to try. I was amazed and shocked, Experiment 452 put some thought into the recipes she chose (about half a dozen) and the theme was readily apparent. I was going to be making a soup and sandwich combo.

Curried Chicken Salad (page 485) and Mulligatawny Soup (page 559) was the final decision. I have no idea what Mulligatawny Soup was, and it sounded a little bit like a golf term. Thankfully after a quick scan of the recipe and a cross reference of the Internet, Mulligatawny Soup is a curry flavored soup. Curry was going to be a theme, and considering I am a fan of curry, this was a very smart selection of Experiment 452.
Gathering my ingredients for the soup and the chicken salad I felt like I murdered a flock of chicken to make broth and to divide it between the soup and the salad. Both the soup and the salad were really easy to put together. There is something to be said about simple clear concise instructions. You have not guess work as to what you are to be doing and or house to do it. I have done some recipes where it is 2 parts guess work and 1 part crossing your fingers that you made the right choice in how you combined the ingredients. Both the Mulligatawny Soup and the Curried Chicken Salad required a very low skill in culinary mastery and provided you trusted a child with a knife, they could make this easily.

Two days later I brought Experiment 452 more soup, but added rice to it. The rice was needed to add more body to the Mulligatawny Soup. You don't even realize that it needed rice until you tried it with the rice. Overall I would keep the recipe, but add rice and noodles to it. The broth hits a happy spot, and as noted by Experiment 452 this would be a really good fall soup. The mace in it is reminiscent of nutmeg and makes you want to finish up with a piece of pumpkin pie.

It is a sad realization the Betty Crocker just isn't' that interested in the full potential of curry. The recipes are all middle of the road and don't get all that wild or exotic with the ingredients. The most exotic ingredient that was actually hard for me to find was the Mace, which I later discovered is just a different version of nutmeg and comes from the same plant. I can only hope that I have better luck with flavor and spice in other Betty Crocker recipes and I want to thank Experiment 452 for being a good sport about this.
FYI- 7 of 58 achieved.
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