October 6, 2007

• A recipe is just a possibility…

  Since getting my wisdom teeth out last week, I have been eating a lot of mushy foods.  Sam has been so wonderful and amazing about serving me, especially in those first few days when I couldn’t do much for myself (props to my hubby).  He even learned how to make some rice porridge for me!  The porridge was great for the days of my worse pain and lasted for quite a few days. The taste felt overdone after about Day 3 or 4, however, and so I decided to throw together a few things to make some kind of soup that I was able to eat.  I looked up some key words on google of some of the ingredients I had at home and got a general idea about how others made soup with those ingredients, and then I got to work on my own recipe.  Sam knew we were making something new, so while we were preparing the food together, he asked me where I learned this recipe from and I said, “Um…I’m making it up as I go along.”  –which, of course, is not new around here at all. 

  Using recipes is just not my style.  I like to get creative in the kitchen, and using recipes to a tee often feels like I’m cheating myself of the fun of cooking.  I use a recipe as a “possibility”, as an example of one way of making something, and then I make my own way.   This is pretty much why all the cookbooks we own are collecting dust on our bookshelves.  I never touch them.  “Google” actually serves as the best recipe book — since you get many different possibilities for making such and such dish…   Anybody else cook this way? 

  Here’s one way of making the soup I made the other day:

  Ingredients
  Pasta elbows (also known as macaroni)
  Italian sausage
  Potatoes
  Carrots
  Celery
  Peas
  Chicken broth

  Suggested Directions
  Cook Italian sausage (follow package directions).  Boil some water in a separate pot and put the pasta elbows in.  Meanwhile, dice up all the veggies.   (I really should’ve added onions but didn’t think of it at the time!)  When the pasta elbows are almost cooked, take them out.  Add chicken broth to the pot (sometimes the broth is too concentrated, so add some water to it).  Put the pasta elbows and all the diced up veggies into the broth.  Bring to a boil and then leave at low-to-medium heat.  When sausage is cooked, dice up the sausage as well and add to the broth.  Simmer on low until all veggies are soft. 

  • 5:18 pm
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