creativity gone awry

When creativity meets the methodologist something not so good can happen.
Its like an obsessed scientist working to perfect his new discovery. When this happens in the kitchen its the innocent by-standers who must be pittied. They will be forced to consume dish after dish of the same concoctions with barely discernable differences and then they will be asked to render their cullinary opinions yet again.
I wasn’t too worried when we had rice pudding made with barley the first time. The texture was a little different, but I like barley so it was good. Then two days later when we had finally finished the first batch I was surprised to find another batch of barley cooking away in the rice cooker. Smaller batch he tells me.
So the next day here we go again, but smaller batch in same size pan meant too much crunchy grains. Later that week here we go again, but with both cinnamon and vanilla. And then we added apples. Maybe different apples would cook better, maybe covering the pan, maybe adding dried cranberries...
Each permutation is carefully noted on the recipe card.
What isn’t noted is that I am losing my interst in barley. Oops too late, we are now into a 25 lb bag of the stuff.