Struggles!

I like to think I'm a pretty good cook. I am no chef, but I have come up with some pretty tasty dishes all on my own. There are certain things I struggle with, to the point that I've almost given up. Some examples are quinoa, no matter what method I try it's never light and fluffy. Like never. And quinoa is expensive, even in bulk so it's just not in my budget. Another example is sushi. I am the worlds worst wrapper/roller. I hear practice makes perfect, but I have tried soooo many times, and I show no signs of improvement! Another food I struggle with is vegan burgers. I make burgers that taste amazing, but they fall apart, or the texture is just off. Or I make burgers that have perfect texture, but are bland and boring. I feel like I have tried every recipe out there, every bean, every grain, tofu, seitan, tempeh, combos of all of the above and so on. Out of the five million attempts I've made, maybe two or three times I have actually had success and it's always such a beautiful, rare occurrence, like a rainbow when it's raining! One attempt that really worked I actually blogged about, which is good because I wrote down the recipe! Some type of vegan burger is almost always in my freezer, even when I'm trying to eat nothing processed, I will bend for a vegan burger.
Every now and again I throw caution to the wind and attempt another vegan burger. Yesterday was one of those days. I had two potatoes that needed to be used and a can of garbanzo beans begging to be used. I steamed and mashed the potatoes, and mashed the garbanzo beans to about the texture you would use for chickpea no tuna salad. I mixed them together with some spices, and salt and pepper and let chill in the fridge for a few hours. One thing I have learned about making perfect vegan burgers is no matter what ingredients you use, they all improve after a good chill. It makes everything stick together so much better!

These were just okay.

I cooked them in a pan on the stove top first, then finished in the oven. They tasted pretty good, I used red curry powder as one of my spices, but they didn't hold together. They were like a mashed potato patty. Maybe I should have only used one potato. At any rate, I didn't bother putting a patty on an English muffin as planned, because it just wasn't anything like a burger. But luckily taste-wise it was pretty dang tasty. In the end, I'm okay with kitchen fails as long as it's still edible!
Do you have anything you struggle with in the kitchen?