Sweet and Sour Chicken... Psyche!

Dear Little Paperback Book I Bought from the Register Hidden Among the Tabloids & Horoscope Scrolls:

ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME?!

What a send-off. How can 2 recipes, back to back, both containing chicken and fabliss wannaful fragrant spices... taste AWFUL?! How does that happen? I followed this recipe to an absolute tee.

How is it humanly possible to mix chicken and ginger and garlic and soy sauce and peppers and onions into a recipe... and the RICE I boiled... out-flavors the FOOD? 

One hour plus of cooking... and the result is Chunky Air Pudding. No taste at all whatsoever (except for when I occasionally bit into a random piece of fresh ginger root). Even the mandarin oranges and apricot preserves have been rendered tasteless in this recipe.

Well, I have pork and steak in the fridge that are awaiting their spin in the wok. At this rate, this cookbook will fail them both, but I am keeping the faith. Not a strong faith in this book of pretty (pretty awful) food, but faith nonetheless.

I will certainly never secure my husband at this rate. If the next couple of recipes fail, I will have to resort to other measures. 

Measures I am not yet certain of.

*...sigh*

*...sigh again*

Hell with it... *...another sigh*