The kitchen is a magical place that brings out the best of my creativity. It’s a place of entertainment and experimentation, where my inner critic and self doubt aren’t welcome.

The rest of my life is not like this. I have lots of fear of failure so it’s harder to take risks.

Fear of failure has such an intense emotional charge I often hide it from myself and it shows up as procrastination or resistance. That feeling of wanting to do something but never making time or following through.

I don’t fear failure in the kitchen. I’m unattached. It’s just a game. An opportunity to learn and explore. I taught myself how to cook by messing up and learning what not to do.

In the kitchen, nothing is serious or personal. It’s all an experiment (hence the name kitchen lab) I’m curious how it will turn out. It’s a culinary soap opera and I’m a food explorer.

In the kitchen I’ve found a way to let go of my usual perfectionism.

For anxious, sensitive types, like me, perfectionism is as damaging to health as too much sugar or processed foods.

Perfectionistic expectations equal stress. And that takes the joy out of the journey.

You might find yourself paralyzed or losing interest as self protection. Interpreting the situation as not being interested instead of fear of messing up.

Because I leave fear and perfectionism behind I experience child-like joy in the kitchen and my intuition comes out to help.

My last kitchen fail was a scotch egg.  It’s a hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage. Sounds easier than it is.

The sausage fell off the egg in the oven. It took several attempts to get right.

The secret is in wrapping your eggs. The sausage meat can’t be on too thick or too thin.

This is a great recipe to attempt if you want to examine your relationship with perfectionism or failure. Notice your reactions to getting it right or wrong.

You can also use this recipe to practice your sausage making skills. It’s as easy as spicing up some ground meat of choice.

And despite the results you still get the eat this dish, it’s tasty even if it doesn’t look pretty.

It just goes to show you that failure is just an illusion we all dreamed up to torture ourselves. There is no failure. There’s only tasty food to eat.

It’s a deep lesson. A life changing lesson that I am trying to apply to the rest of my life. How not to take myself too seriously. How to approach everything I do like the results don’t really matter that much.

This is emotional liberation. So you can experience child like fun and  let your creativity shine through.

Here’s the recipe, results and tips to make your experience easier.

Ingredients

6 hard boiled eggs

1.5 pounds of sausage meat (break the meat from it’s casing, buy it in bulk or make your own by mixing 1 teaspoon of salt, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, cumin and paprika in your ground meat of choice) (You can use any meat for this, pork, lamb, beef, turkey)

2 extra eggg to mix into the meat mixture

Optional: Paleo bread crumbs or pork rind dust to roll the eggs in

How to

Boil the eggs by boiling the water then turning it off and dropping the eggs in for 10 minutes.

Dump the hot water and fill the pot with cool water and let the eggs sit for 5 minutes.

Peel the eggs.

Mix the spices and sausage in a bowl or simply take the sausage out of it’s casing or put your bulk sausage into the bowl.  Crack two raw eggs into the bowl and mix with the meat.

Take the sausage and roll it out on a piece of plastic wrap like you would with dough. Once it is rolled out, cut it into 6 evenly spaced squares. Cut the plastic wrap with scissors so you have 6 individual squares and can pick each one up in your hand separately.

Put a peel egg in the middle of one of the square and use the plastic wrap to gently wrap the meat around the egg until the whole egg is covered. Repeat until all the eggs are covered.

Optional: roll the eggs in almond flour, pork rind dust or crushed kale chips for a crunchy exterior. It will still come out great if you skip this step.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake the eggs for 30 minutes.

Let cool for a few minutes and cut in half to serve over salad or with fries or take it with you whole as a perfect snack food or lunch on the go.