Musings to Escape A Boring Week

Well, it hasn't been THAT boring, but it has been busy. If I was a good journalist/blogger, I'd have a few posts set aside for the days when I look at my computer screen and go completely blank (like yesterday). However, since this is a stream-of-consciousness sort of blog, though, it's hard to store up streams of consciousness for an uninspired day.

Dinners have been haphazard and not noteworthy at all the past two days, so I'm going to skip over that part. I had a wise old lady tell me once that, when she was at a loss for what to cook and her husband was walking in the door (those were the OLD days when the wife was supposed to be in a dress, dinner ready, and martini to hand to her husband as he walked in from The Office), she'd melt butter in a pan and add some chopped onion to it while she was trying to decide what to fix. That made the kitchen smell great, like real cooking was going on, and bought her some time.

That's always a good start. If you have base items you rely on (mine would be garlic, of course, and shallots or onions), then you can add to the concept with different herbs, spices, meats, and vegetables, and make kind of variations on a theme. For example, the family was kind of tired of boneless skinless chicken breasts but that's what I had to cook (and I was pretty tired of it too). To dress it up a bit, I sauteed the inevitable garlic and onions (I was out of shallots that week), browned the chicken breasts on both sides, added some white wine and spices, enough whipping cream to make a sauce, and wrapped the chicken breasts in puff pastry with the sauce inside. I baked those until the puff pastry browned on top, and there was dinner, with a side of steamed vegetables or a salad, and maybe potatoes or buttered noodles. It was the same old chicken inside but it looked different and tasted pretty good.

My mother used to take ground beef and cook it with garlic, onions, tomatoes, and whatever other vegetables she had lying around, and serve it over a baked or mashed potato. There are all sorts of ideas -- "desperation dinners," if you will -- and all you are limited by are your imagination and the contents of your kitchen.

If you treat cooking like a game, you'll not only have fun with it but will come up with unique and delicious meals. Oh, sure, sometimes they'll be more unique than delicious, but those make for great family stories!