..............................................when you don't have all of the right ingredients!!!!
Hello Dear Reader,
I thought I would share one of my 'haven't got all the right ingredients recipes'. Here's my version of creamy tomato and 'marscarpone' sauce for pasta.
You will need
pasta for 2
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons of oil - use what you have!
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 tablespoon of dried basil
a good squirt of tomato puree
1 tablespoon of garlic granules or 4 crushed cloves of garlic.
Here goes! Get in from work................hungry! Put the water to boil to cook the pasta. Whilst you're doing this, empty the dishwasher and put the dishes away. Rinse out the dog water bowls and re-fill them whilst you let them out in the garden to run around barking at pigeons.
Whilst the dogs are barking, open the window and shout shut up and ferret around in the pantry for some onions and garlic. Peel and finely chop and heat some oil in a pan. With the heat on low and the dogs mithering you to be fed, fry the onions and garlic and then add a squirt of tomato puree. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes along with a spoon of sugar and some salt and pepper.
Whilst this is cooking, gather up the laundry and put a load into wash. Remind husband that he needs to check out the woodstove that he promised to look at. Heat some meat balls in the microwave and grate some parmesan..............cheap in Aldi and you'll only need 10g between the two of you.
Remind yourself that you never have Marscapone and get some cream cheese out of the fridge (65p a tub in Aldi) and stir the last scrape of it through the tomato sauce to use instead. Serve with pasta, meatballs and Downton Abbey on the digi-box cross legged on the floor on a Monday night.
I thought I would share one on my imperfect recipes on an imperfect night where anything hot and tasty will do. We all cook with children, or grandchildren, or dogs and cats around our feet and we all have to remember that our best is good enough.
We've all cooked and dabbed TCP on a grazed knee with a small child balanced on the draining board; we've all cooked with baby sick on our shoulders and we've all cooked whilst texting teenagers to actually come home and eat on the same day as the rest of their family! None of us are Nigella with a fridge and pantry full of the right ingredients and we all make do with what we have.
Now it's your turn Dear Reader. I've come clean and told you how I make do and juggle pets and the kitchen and I'm sure you have tales to tell. What do you substitute? What do you juggle whilst cooking? I've listened to piano practice with a bowl of spuds that I'm peeling on my lap and listened to reading practice with a young child reading Biff and Kipper stories to me whilst I've cooked Sunday lunch. How about you?
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxxxxxxxxxxx
One thing I've learned since I began cooking is that a lot of recipes can be tinkered with, omitting things I don't have / don't like and adding / substituting things that I do have / do like
ReplyDeleteNot being a lover of garlic, for example, I never use it.
It doesn't seem to matter that much.
I've been given a recipe for pork that includes apples, cider and creme fraiche; that will be apples, apple juice and soy cream, because that's what I have. Although I do have cider. For drinking.
ReplyDeleteWhen we make huge amounts of bolognaise sauce, tomato and veg pasta sauce, mash, curry, stewed apple, chutney etc, I take a tray, various pots, a chopping board on a tray, knife and peeler and sit on the sofa watching something on the laptop. It means I don't wear myself out standing and sometimes do this night before we actually cook. It makes it much less trouble because we barely notice the effort.
I do a lot of cooking with what I have on hand. In fact it is my preferred way. We have dietary restrictions, budgetary restrictions, and personal preferences that make it necessary...lol
ReplyDeleteI am thankful I grew up watching and learning from cooks who didn't run to the store constantly.
I was making chutney and got to the "stir it every 2 minutes" stage. The ironing was taking over the house so set that up as well, iron, stir, iron, iron,stir, iron, stir stir iron S**T tried to iron white shirt with chutney spoon.
ReplyDeleteLOL Not much of a timesaver after all :)
DeleteLots of substitutions here. Cream cheese for marscapone is one too. Bacon or ham will do for expensive small goods. An onion is an onion around here. Potatoes are potatoes. I have one type of butter so if a recipe calls for unsalted butter I just cut out the salt that may be in there elsewhere. In short I generally keep three cheeses: parmesan, tasty cheddar and cream cheese. I also substitute around for my seafood and egg allergy or do without.
ReplyDeleteHere's a sort of juggling story for you: I recently learned that a pan full of chicken thighs will roast in exactly the time it takes to feed and water my goats :)
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, the piano practice sounds familiar until they got good enough to change keys on me. I knew something was different, but the notes were the same. Little buggers.
ReplyDeleteI live realistic and elastic recipes. I cook my quinoa while in the shower, toast my bread for breakfast while boiling pasta for lunch (a little pesto, cheese, and my tupperware is ready) and loading the wash while making dinner is a weekly Classic. Now I should fix my lunch for work, fold my laundry and get dressed.
ReplyDeleteDried beans and peas are much the same , hence yellow split peas as mushy peas (isnt there a posh name for that?) and Chilli con butter beans
ReplyDeleteFirst picture, I thought boring, then last picture yummy, thank you, spaghetti bog with baked bens to stretch, sound awful, but, really yummy,
ReplyDeleteI soak and cook an entire bag of beans in one go and freeze them in portions so some weeks the chilli has kidney beans in and next time butter beans but no one seems to mind. As I am now helping my daughter out with little man so she can work saturdays I am back to juggling but now I have time I prepare our weekend meals in advance so I can spend more time with him. He goes back home on Sunday mornings so Mummy can have a lie in and I make sure Sunday dinner is also prepped so I can take it easy if he has worn me out - he is an early riser!! I love making muffins as you can basically throw any bits and bobs in them that are hanging around but have discovered you can do much the same with scones, my latest ones had dried cranberries in because I had a pack that I got for pennies.
ReplyDeleteAlways made supper while kids did homework at the kitchen table; now the kids are gone and it's always one or two cats underfoot while I'm cooking. I think I preferred the kids :)
ReplyDeleteThe instructions here are just magic - got to be one of my favourite posts on your blog. Have you considered making a video of this recipe in the making - complete with dogs, dishwasher, laundry etc?
ReplyDelete