Reflections...
After a busy day on Saturday, I spent Sunday in reflection. While I baked my usual loaf of bread, quiches and granola for the week's breakfasts, I pondered whether I had changed as a cook over the last eight months. My challenge was to "stop repeating the same old recipes over and over again, week in, week out. .... to explore food and develop my cookery skills so that I will be able to invent my own recipes and so that I can put ingredients together without too much thought".
I thought hard about this - I have thought before about whether I was really developing as a cook. I seemed to have gone from one set of recipes to another, so how far have I come?
My decision was this:
I now bake every weekend - a fresh loaf of bread that the family prefer to anything shop bought; a batch of granola that beats anything I could buy, to which I can add all the delicious fruits and nuts that I love; quiches for R to take to work, made with my own shortcrust pastry in various varieties, which are filled with different fillings each week depending on what I have. I can mix up a warm batch of fresh scones without so much as a thought, and experiment with my Rock Cake recipe, another of R's favourites. During the week, I cook when I can, but don't feel obliged to, like I did at the beginning of this experiment. I find things in supermarkets that I haven't tried before and buy them just to see what I can do. I also find it easier to put a few good ingredients together and make a fantastic, quick meal. Take tonight, for instance...
On Saturday I couldn't resist these gorgeous jewel-like vegetables - both reduced, and longing to go home with someone!
Today these ingredients were thrown together - pasta, vegetables (pre-roasted yesterday), cooked chicken (left over from Sunday lunch) and pesto (a reduced pot from M&S - good choice!). The result:
A good grating of Parmesan and supper was complete!
So, where am I with this challenge?
I guess I have made huge leaps back to the cook I used to be, and maybe I'm even challenging myself a bit more. Writing this blog makes me cook - I need the evidence. It has made me more conscious of what I am doing - or not doing sometimes! My family have benefited, and we all love fresh food, cooked without preservatives. Even R doesn't buy things in the shops if they contain anything that he doesn't know the name of. I once again feel more at ease with cooking and it fits into my busy lifestyle. Who knows where the next four months will take me, but I am not going to feel guilty about repeating a few basics each week. You need to have a bit of a rest, don't you? ;-)
I thought hard about this - I have thought before about whether I was really developing as a cook. I seemed to have gone from one set of recipes to another, so how far have I come?
My decision was this:
I now bake every weekend - a fresh loaf of bread that the family prefer to anything shop bought; a batch of granola that beats anything I could buy, to which I can add all the delicious fruits and nuts that I love; quiches for R to take to work, made with my own shortcrust pastry in various varieties, which are filled with different fillings each week depending on what I have. I can mix up a warm batch of fresh scones without so much as a thought, and experiment with my Rock Cake recipe, another of R's favourites. During the week, I cook when I can, but don't feel obliged to, like I did at the beginning of this experiment. I find things in supermarkets that I haven't tried before and buy them just to see what I can do. I also find it easier to put a few good ingredients together and make a fantastic, quick meal. Take tonight, for instance...
On Saturday I couldn't resist these gorgeous jewel-like vegetables - both reduced, and longing to go home with someone!
Today these ingredients were thrown together - pasta, vegetables (pre-roasted yesterday), cooked chicken (left over from Sunday lunch) and pesto (a reduced pot from M&S - good choice!). The result:
A good grating of Parmesan and supper was complete!
So, where am I with this challenge?
I guess I have made huge leaps back to the cook I used to be, and maybe I'm even challenging myself a bit more. Writing this blog makes me cook - I need the evidence. It has made me more conscious of what I am doing - or not doing sometimes! My family have benefited, and we all love fresh food, cooked without preservatives. Even R doesn't buy things in the shops if they contain anything that he doesn't know the name of. I once again feel more at ease with cooking and it fits into my busy lifestyle. Who knows where the next four months will take me, but I am not going to feel guilty about repeating a few basics each week. You need to have a bit of a rest, don't you? ;-)
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