What’s for Dinner?
I’m a lover of food. It is pretty much my main reason for even trying to cook. The other reason is that I like to make sure my family is eating healthy when they’re home.
My favorite way to cook is to make something I’ve made before because I’m familiar with the flavors and I don’t have to measure anything. I can confidently alter and replace ingredients without being nervous about how it might turn out and end up wasting food and, in turn, wasting money. However, I don’t cook this way the majority of the time.
My second-fave way of cooking is when I almost have nothing to cook with. This may sound odd, but when I’m, essentially, forced, to come up with something, I like that my creativity is able to take hold and make it work. The other night, I had a very busy day and hadn’t had time to get to the store. I was out of just about everything! I knew I had tortillas, but no meat. I sorted through my canned goods and found a can of spanish rice, so I grabbed that, because I knew there was a half of can of refried beans in the fridge, along with half an onion. I started whipping through my condiments and found a some pickled jalapenos and, with my huge array of spices, I was able to create something worthy of putting in a tortilla and the girls loved them! Success! Something out of nothing…how fun is that?
I’m NOT a comfort foody. Well, let me explain. I love comfort foods, but I refuse to make them weekly and only indulge in them once in awhile. I do this because I don’t want to get in a weekly routine of eating certain foods. I know that a lot of mothers do that, but I feel that I would be limiting my family’s “food horizons” by doing that. I like to bring diversity to my table, so I’m huge on new recipes and I enjoy bringing the kids in to “alter” a recipe with me. Sometimes, we choose to omit certain things or replace it with something we like better. We don’t care if we’re breaking the rules; in fact, I recommend it! It’s way more fun.
Last night, I made my first-ever batch of French Onion Soup (that’s the photo of it at the top), using a recipe from Jamie Oliver (love him!). Now, again, I didn’t follow the rules, but the flavors turned out marvelous, although I quickly realized that I had created enough soup to feed 14 instead of 4. It’s ok…I can use leftover onions and broth for like a million things….mexican pork roast, blue cheese burgers, stroganoff, soup stocks, etc. No problem!
Soooo…what’s for dinner?
