when you don’t have the ingredients, or even the tools…make it anyway

I woke up earlier than usual for a Saturday morning due to the fact I needed to pee.

Instead of returning to bed, I decided to take breakfast duties upon myself (usually my hubs makes pancakes or waffles on weekends – yes, he’s a good one) and change things up a bit today.

I’ve had Pioneer Woman’s Sunday Fritatta recipe pinned in my Pinterest for years and thought today was the day I was finally going to make it. I quickly looked through the recipe and figured although I was missing many of the ingredients and I didn’t have an oven safe skillet – I was still going to make this because I had what I deemed were the essentials, and I was determined to have fritatta for breakfast.

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Rule #1: Add color to your plate

So of course I had to make this Rule #1 as it was the rule that named this blog after all.  But, listen to this rule please.  It will change your life.  It will make you smile. It will cause your tummy to grumble with longing and then to be filled with happiness.  Colors do that for you.

On a more serious note, adding color to your plate (no fake colors please), means adding variety which generally makes a dish more exciting.  It also most likely involves including veggies, which we all know are good for your health and range from a beautiful spectrum of hues. Green has always been my favorite color, and I try to incorporate it into my meals everyday.  When cooked right, vegetables and roots can really brighten any plate with vibrancy and flavor.

What colors will you splash your plate with today?

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Today I actually COOKED Lunch

lunch in 20(ish)min

Today I prepped and cooked lunch – yes COOKED – during my workday (which was very busy) in between meetings in about 20-25 minutes and amazed myself.

I thought up the idea this morning as my husband complained of how small the salmon portions are from Amazon Fresh – so I thought to myself: He has a point – maybe they’d be better as lunch instead of dinner. I also perhaps felt guilty about the indulgent massive burger and onion rings I had last night from Bareburger simply because I gave into my craving after taking a walk outdoors and breathing in a whiff of someone’s grilling.

In any case, my own success with this lunch has now inspired me to perhaps make this less of an anomaly and to share how it can be done! Here’s how I did it:

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Change the Cheese, Add some Meat – It’s Yours

Ever make the same dish in a span of two weeks because it was that damn good? Well, I generally don’t as I’m usually a stickler for variety and avoiding recent repetition, but this dish was THAT DAMN GOOD.

Featured here is my rendition of Bon Appetit’s Spicy Baked Pasta with Cheddar and Broccoli Rabe. I am 150% sure that if you do follow the recipe step by step, you won’t be any less pleased than I was with my version. But you know me, I don’t like following rules in the kitchen 😬 Also, when I first browsed the recipe, my immediate reaction was “But where’s the meat?” And nothing was going to stop me from adding The Meat (except perhaps coronavirus which thankfully has not yet affected my meat intake).

So here’s what I followed and here’s what I changed.

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Making Real Simple’s Pistachio Pesto Risotto My Own

Many friends have been asking good questions during this time of global pandemic such as “What can I be doing right now?” despite the restrictions before them. I reflected on my not-so-recent-anymore goal (see my last post July 2019) of committing to making something new once a week and realized I had basically achieved that goal only once since then. (Judge me – but I’ve already confessed I’m horrible with these “commitments”) So what better time than now to reawaken that goal?

One new and fun thing I’ve been doing since this crisis hit is reading and flipping through magazines – physical ones. Previously I had several ones I’d subscribed to digitally but right before the virus hit, I had received a gift of 4 print magazine subscriptions for a year and I thought “why not?” I have been especially thankful for them these days because it’s allowed me to enjoy images of delicious drool-worthy food without being on an electronic device.

Well, eventually the images look delicious enough to tempt one to attempt making them. And so I decided to try. Both risotto and pesto were things I’d always wondered how on earth one makes, and this was my chance to make both in one shot! And boy was it so much easier than I ever could have imagined!

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Be a Copycat

It’s been more than a year since I’ve posted anything and when my card was recently hit with the yearly WordPress renewal fee, I was reminded of my bane – never seeing any commitment through that I make.

I also realized that although I’ve been cooking my way through life all along, my routine had become less interesting and uninspired.

I started looking through screenshots of beautiful food photography I had saved in the past and missed the days when I’d meal plan on Sundays for the whole week. While that may have been a naive notion a few years ago, I still found myself yearning to have an element of that in this present life. So, I’ve decided to make this notion more attainable for myself and pick just one “new” thing to try making once a week, instead of for every single meal.

I therefore begin with what seems easiest to me: copying.

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Sharon Baldessari2 Comments

Recipes are guidelines, not rules

Keeping along with my theme of “freeing the mind” (have you seen The Matrix? There is no spoon!) from the rigidity of recipes, this photo is proof that you don’t need to follow them as hard and fast rules. Use them as guidelines. And perhaps for base knowledge for those of you who are still building that foundation. But…

be freed from the mentality that you need every ingredient that the recipe calls for or that you even need to necessarily follow all its measurements.

(By the way this post applies solely to cooking and not baking – I readily admit I know nothing about baking as it generally requires strict adherence to measurements and my lazy rebel little heart just can’t handle all that.)

The above image features my take on Cooking Light’s beef ragu with polenta. I don’t remember what the recipe called for, but I do remember the picture on the page – a very lickable picture I recall. And that’s really the most important part of a recipe for me anyway: the picture of the dish, not the recipe.

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