(sees you listed "making pie" apart from baking. wat)

Sounds good! As a fellow person who has baked before, I can totally relate to dumping half a container of powder into your dough. In my cases, I most remember dumping a ton of gold dust onto my sugar base when learning sugar sculpting. I added so much dust in one go that I needed to add in extra sugar so my other pieces would actually stick to the base. =P Another time occurred when I was just cooking dinner and I was adding garlic powder to something. I thought it had a shaker cap on it, but instead I ended up dumping half the container in. Still came out fine, though (I think it was bruschetta?)

Yeah, those things happen. Though, a good rule of thumb is to do small batches with strange recipes and taste the dough before you bake them off. The flavor itself shouldn't change after baking, (mouth feel does along with active ingredients being present like baking soda) so it's a good time to taste. And, hey, if it's not right, try to save it. If not, toss it out and try again (or if you hate being wasteful and don't have a compost heap, then bake them off anyway. I had a chef instructor that once said

"if I get a dessert and it doesn't taste great, I simply won't eat it. Don't sin unless it's worth it" i'm not quite as picky because I do hate being wasteful, but it's not the worst of sentiments) Sounds like they still came out good, though. I would recommend making a peanut butter sauce or just melted peanut butter for the next time, though. A sauce would probably be just melted peanut butter, confectioner's sugar and milk or water to thin it down to the right consistency. Drizzle them on top to get a nice lined look or checked diamond look. (I want to try this now...)

As for the garlic, I would use fresh garlic then mince it. I'm not sure what you used, but fresh garlic in my experience has a distinct difference in flavor from the pre-minced stuff. Procedure for mincing is to hold the blade horizontal in front of you and rock it back and forth quickly with one hand on the handle and the other on top of the blade. Takes around five minutes.

Edit: As for a chicken dish, chicken cordon bleu is a good choice in my opinion. It's pretty simple too. Take a chicken breast, cut it almost entirely in half, and then stuff it with a slice of ham and a slice of swiss cheese (fold them into a small rectangle and get it entirely in there). After that roll them in flour, egg wash, then bread crumbs. Deep fry or bake them off. It's cheesey, full of chicken and ham flavor topped with swiss cheese. You can prepare a sauce for it as well (I can get back to you on that). It also serves well with cooked veggies or maybe a salad on the side.

 I thought it had a shaker cap on it, but instead I ended up dumping half the container in.

Yup, done that. And I love bruschetta! There is probably a point where you can put too much garlic in it but I'd eat it anyway.

I had a chef instructor that once said  "if I get a dessert and it doesn't taste great, I simply won't eat it. Don't sin unless it's worth it"

I imagine that's an okay philosophy if your job means you make food for paying customers, but there's no way I can justify being wasteful like that. If I put time and ingredients into something I'm going to eat it no matter what it tastes like.

For the garlic I took some crushed garlic out of a jar in the fridge, not because I don't know how to mince garlic (I can assure you I do), but because it was there and it needed to be used up. A professional chef could probably taste the difference, but I could not.

And thanks for the recipe suggestion- I love all those flavors and will definitely have to try that!

Also:

(sees you listed "making pie" apart from baking. wat)

"Making" was the wrong word. All I did during the making process was cut in the butter. Mostly I just ate the final product.

Actually I wasn't sure what you used for garlic.  I just like showing off my knowledge of basic knife skills because in the world of Culinary, other chefs will assume I know absolutely nothing in that area because I am a baker.  My apologies (force of habit).

Anyway, bruschetta is wonderful.

As for the philosophy, it's one we had to learn when we were in school.  That was the time for us to make as many mistakes as possible to learn, and that meant tossing out a lot of stuff.  We had to bake our own cakes to decorate, but by the time we got to decorating them (because classes were only around an hour or so long), they were completely molded, and we had to toss out our finished products.  Also, when I did my culinary class, we were prevented from taking home our food because a while ago some students were throwing their food at pedestrians, apparently.  It was "In your gut or in the garbage" so I tried to eat as much as possible.  My baking classes allowed us to take our food home, though.  I find that pretty ironic because whenever I was taking home a pie or a cake, my desire to throw it into someone's face was extremely high.  (I hate being the nice guy sometimes.  I will have to live my entire life without throwing a pie or cake right into someone's face!  Stupid conscience...)

Welp, sorry for the ramblings!

(Also I take it you were cutting the butter into the flour for the pies?  That makes sense, then.  =P)

Also, when I did my culinary class, we were prevented from taking home our food because a while ago some students were throwing their food at pedestrians, apparently

 

Why on earth would anyone waste food by throwing it at pedestrians? There is literally nothing about this scenario that makes any logical sense to me.

That's interesting that you actually took (or are taking?) classes in this subject. Last time I learned anything about cooking/baking in school it was eight grade Home Ec. Mostly I'm just doing a lot of cooking and baking with my parents and trying to pick up stuff from them.

Took.  I got a degree in baking and patisserie, and now I'm working as a baker.  It's not the most glamorous of professions, but hey, I got a job in my field after graduating (wish this were the rule and not the exception), and the work is so much better than an office job in my opinion.

Also, the superficial trend was as such:  Bakers aren't real chefs because their work is "easy" and all students studying the Culinary half of the curriculum are total jerk faces.  (Some of the professors probably didn't help dissuade this notion).

There are reasons that notion exists, and I could get into it, but I have rambled enough as is.  =P

Anyway, cooking at home is awesome.  People need to do it more in my opinion because fast food is literally like the lowest quality of food there is.  (Though I heard McDonald's stopped using that pink slime stuff for their chicken.  That's probably a good thing, maybe?  Depends on what the substitute is).  (My nutrition class ruined me)