Wish and stomach fulfilment

There are times when it’s useful to be getting fixated on something. In fact, last night it helped me get back into something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile, and I was so very glad that I did. Very glad.

Last night I decided I wanted to make the vegetarian pasta with puttanesca sauce, something I talked about when I first made it back in May of 2019. I’ve made variations of it every since, sometimes using cannellini beans instead of lentils, often with a bit of grated carrot, and maybe other bits and pieces as the mood struck me. Then, I just stopped making it—not on purpose, I just stopped.

The problem I have with recipes is that if I don’t make something in awhile, I forget how to make it, and I need to consult the recipe. So last night I went through my recipe ring binder, and found two different recipes. And in so doing, I realised how I’d combined the two different recipes.

The recipe I made in 2019 was from a circular from one of NZ’s two supermarket companies, but, in July of 2018, I didn’t have a recipe for a vegetarian bolognese. Somewhere along the line, I combined the two in my mind, which underdstandbly confused me when I was looking through my recipes.

Still I saw that I’d downloaded the recipe for the vegetarian bolognese from the BBC’s “Food” part of their site (I fist saw it on a BBC programme). Since I had to follow a recipe, anyway, I decided to try the BBC version. It was outstanding (photo up top), and, in fact, it was so much better than my original effort (either one or later combined versions). I even got to use an onion I grew (which is actually a topic in itself). I’ll definitely make it again.

This is exactly the sort of thing I meant when I shared a photo of a meal I’d improvised, adding that:

I realised that I seldom share meal photos (aka “food porn”) any more, and that’s because I seldom try new things or new recipes. There’s absolutely no reason for that—I just haven’t.

And also:

The last photo I took in February was a meal, yes, but also something I’d like to start doing more of again: Experimenting with new recipes, and/or new ways of cooking things—like I used to do.

Last night’s meal was exactly what I was talking about, which is why I did it despite not being into it that night—well, not at first. The more I worked on it, the more I remembered how fun it is to do that.

Maybe I’d set myself up for it on Friday. I took an avocado I bought at the supermarket recently to make smashed avocado on toast for my breakfast that morning. However, I didn’t use it all, and at first I thought I might make nachos for my dinner on Saturday, but instead I decided to have a poached egg on avocado toast for my breakfast (photo at right). That created the opportunity to make the vegetarian bolognese last night.

I’m pretty good at making poached eggs now, but I have to do them one at a time because I now use the “create a whirlpool in the pot of boiling water” method. I used to cook two in a pan of water with a little white vinegar which, the Internet told me, helps keep the whites together, but, yeah, not so much. The whirlpool method works much better, but unless I have two pots on the cooktop at once, I can only make one poached egg at a time. This is probably just a learning experience; after all, even making fried eggs took some experimentation, and now when I (rarely) make them, they’re perfect (and I do two at a time).

There’s one more thing about yesterday’s breakfast: I’d put a little chilli powder in the smashed avocado, mainly because at the time I thought I was going to make nachos with the leftover mix. There was a time I’d never have done that. I guess all this cooking experimentation is making me more adventurous, too.

I often get fixated on something, and in this case me being determined to experiment with cooking and recipes helped me get back into something I hadn’t done for awhile. I was so very glad that I did.