Playing with my food

Playing with my food - results of a basket challenge

Some years ago there were what I  would call 'reality cooking shows'.  One that I remember was where three young chefs were given baskets of ingredients, often containing bizarre and unusual foods, and expected to make a meal for a panel of distinguished judges.  I'm not a television fan.  In fact, the chair where I usually sat in the evenings was purposely located well out of sight of the television while being in the same room.  But I must admit that I rather enjoyed that show. I also like the Iron Chef and Alton Brown, but that's unimportant, with no relevance to this blog and coming dangerously close to going off on a tangent.  It does, however, give you an idea about the way I like to cook.  

Over the past six years Pamela has been happy to let me play with our food to my hearts content.  I say 'play with our food' because even if I start with a recipe I will very likely start playing around with different ingredients or spices.  I love my spices.  The rack above my stove holds thirty spices. Those are just the ones I use most often.  Pamela and I prefer spicy foods, so I always have fresh, dried or frozen chilies along with four or five different hot sauces representing as many culinary traditions.  There are, of course, some recipes that I will always follow faithfully.  Risotto is one of my favorites to cook.  So many cookbooks and articles try to find short-cuts and ways to make it less labor intensive.  I don't want short-cuts. I truly enjoy the act of standing at the stove making the risotto - the soffrito, tostatura, deglaze, cottura and mantecatura. I am very careful to be as faithful to the traditional Italian method as possible.  However, this faithfulness to a recipe doesn't apply to all classics.  I go nuts with bouillabaisse. Isn't that the idea. Same with something like ratatouille.  These were fish and vegetable stews that were originally made from whatever you had. That's what makes preparing them special and so much fun.  

Most of our friends seem to think that I do a pretty good job and always make the right noises when I cook. They could be just being polite, but they never turn down the opportunity for me to cook. Suffice it to say, I have a great time looking at recipes for which I do not have all the ingredients and trying to make something similar with ingredients I have.  For me recipe books are idea books.  I really like doing things from scratch.  When I do quiche I make my own crust.  I never use pasta sauces from a can.  A few years ago our group of campground hosts were planning our weekly get together. Thinking that she was giving me an easy task one of our friends asked me to bring the re-fried beans.  A second friend looked at the first and said, "you know he'll make them from scratch."  I don't know if they had a wager going, but if they had, the second friend won.  I had never made re-fried beans, but I had a good time making them. Since we also spend a great portion of our time far our into the wilderness, I have spent a lot of time working on ways to make "real" foods without fresh ingredients.  

This evening I asked Pamela what she wanted for dinner. We both started looking around for ideas.  Pamela had opened the fridge.  "Here is some lentil I cooked."  That was the beginning.  She started pulling things out of the fridge saying "see what you can do with this ...."    From that point on I was the contestant with Pamela loading my basket.  I ended up with lentil, white corn tortillas, frozen protein crumbles, a bag of left over julienne carrots,  a part of an onion, half a green bell pepper, a small red sweet pepper, three hot chili peppers that were past their prime, a container of Greek yogurt, and the end of a bag of grated cheese.  What a collection!  I hadn't started out in the mood to cook but this was like ringing the fire bell for an old fire-horse.   

As I looked at my "basket" of ingredients I knew that it had to have a Mexican bent. By adding some tomato and spices I could make a filling for the tortillas.  

Using a large cast-iron skillet I started with the classic sauteing the aromatics.  In this case it was the onion, which I had diced, to which I added garlic.  The carrot went in shortly because it needed time to soften. As soon as the onion was translucent I added the protein, peppers and chilies. Since the protein didn't need to brown, I just cooked it for a short while before adding the lentil and diced tomatoes.  I wanted to keep the mixture on the dry side so I drained the tomatoes. However, I saved the juice and used it to provide moisture as needed.  I seasoned the mixture with sea-salt, cumin, tarragon, thyme, marjoram, sweet basil, and oregano.  I put Cholula hot sauce, probably our favorite Mexican hot sauce, on the table.  I've found that even if I know we're going to want the dish to have more of a kick it can be more flavorful to add that extra kick at the table.  That was definitely the case here. 

I greased a cast-iron griddle with just enough butter to slightly brown the tortillas on which I  put the mixture, some of the cheese, folded and set aside for the cheese to melt.  I served them with cheese and Greek yogurt on top.    While the challenge was to use the small corn tortillas I found that I preferred putting the mixture on top of corn chips, splashed with Cholula and covered with Greek yogurt and shredded cheese. That's what's in the bowl in the picture. The chips add another layer of salty flavor.  

As you can see I enjoyed my basket challenge.  I think I fulfilled the rules.  I don't know what a panel of distinguished culinary experts would think.  I know they'd cut me down for my plating. LOL!   This type of cooking definitely keeps meal time interesting.  I have to brag and say that I've had very few fiascoes over the years.  I do a lot of - "next time I think I'll try . . . ."  Of course that almost never happens because I almost never make anything the same way twice . . . .  except, of course, for my risotto. 

If you're trying to figure out what to make for dinner and want to have fun cooking, why not give the basket challenge a try.  

[Note:  I do try to write down what I do, if I can remember, and have about a hundred and fifty "recipes" in Evernote.  I'm not much for deserts and breads, and I am a vegetarian, but I'd be glad to share anything I have.  You can probably tweak it again and make it better.]