I've done the same. I love mushroom soup. I love egg nog. I once tried to put the two together because I had run out of milk.
Now I'm not one to waste things, so I tried to finish it but could only stomach a few mouthfuls. Whatever unholy mixture that turned out to be needed to be buried a minimum of 10 feet deep in a lead container with warnings in every possible language to future generations to leave it the fuck alone.
I tried that once with hot cocoa. my logic was that going from water to milk makes hot cocoa far richer and tastier, even better if it's whole milk. egg nog is even richer and tastier than whole milk, so clearly cocoa nog should be delicious. nope
Rice and tortilla chips are both basically solid carbohydrates, right? So like, what's the difference between eating refried beans with tortilla chips, and putting refried beans in rice?
What they have in common is that they both make me not hungry anymore. The difference is how.
Instead of wrecking the entirety of your cooking when introducing something that may not work so well, put a small amount of the new thing in your mouth with a bit of what you’re cooking.
In this case, take a spoonful of mashed potato without swallowing and then a sip of chocolate milk . Do you want an entire bowl of that?
Sometimes even just smelling one with a taste of the other is enough to decide.
Also, try a big spoonful of sour cream in your homemade mashed potato along with your regular seasonings. Awesome.
This reminds me of when I made spaghetti and meatballs pizza. It was amazing. The spaghetti crisped up slightly on the edges, creating a satisfying crunch. Will make again.
Not all combinations are exactly what we predict they'll be, hence the reason for trying new things. People like pineapple on pizza so I thought a different kind of sweet thing might be worth the try.
The Michelin Star way is 1:1 butter to potato ratio (yes, so 1 pound of butter for every pound of potatoes) and a tiny bit of salt lol. You just run the mash potatoes through a fine mesh until it becomes a super smooth paste.
I've made a lot of macaroni and cheese in my day, and I haven't always had the luxury of being able to afford milk. My go-to in that scenario is to use at least double the recipe's butter, and substitute the required milk with about 75% as much water.
It makes the mac and squeaky and it tastes.. not very good.
If they can't afford 1/4 cup (~60 ml) milk for a box of mac n cheese, they certainly can't afford half and half or cream.
If you're not in the US, get powdered milk, which is usually cheaper and for something like mac n cheese, it's plenty good enough. But in the US, powdered milk is more expensive for some stupid reason (probably something to do with dairy subsidies).
I once decided to stuff chicken breasts with Feta, blueberry, and rosemary, I really really thought it should work.
It's the dish that my SO reminds me of constantly that almost ended our relationship. She agrees I'm a good cook but says she almost was willing to take the thought back and leave me over that dish.... It was pretty bad.