Back on Track

It has been a whirlwind few weeks here and no time to explain just yet. But we're back up and running and ready to get back at it.

I was talking to my dad last night (hi Dad!) who just started reading this here blog and he made some great points:

1. I'm a liar
   Here you are, reading all these posts where I tell you to do what your grandmother does, while I do not do a darn thing either of my grandmothers do. As it turns out, neither of my grandmother's can cook a darn and they are the queens of cook out of the can/box/jar/ketchup is fine to use as spaghetti sauce era.
   
   Ick.
   
   So I, in fact, cook like my great-grandmothers who (I've been told) were fantastic cooks and taught my parents how to cook. Phew, I feel better now that I'm no longer a living this double life.
   
2. Recipes are not the answer
   Now, I'm going to keep posting recipes because I'm food-obsessed at heart and I like to share the recipes I'm using. But...
   
   While I'm posting recipes I'm using in Atlanta, you may be reading this in New York (hi Mom!) and turns out the oranges I've started receiving in my CSA box are just not in season for you yet. So even though I made a totally fabulous citrus salad with feta cheese, you have to wait another two months to know of this awesomeness.
   
   The point I'm so very poorly getting at is, seasonality trumps all. The food will be cheaper and it will be about 1,000 times more flavorful.

So here's what I pose to you now (remember this website was started with the idea of conducting experiments to ultimately make better decisions about procuring food).

Tomorrow (or tonight if you eat late like us) cook with no recipe. With no preconceived notion of what you'll be having for dinner. And, most importantly, without buying any additional ingredients than what you have in your house. (As an aside, I'm sure a ton of you are laughing saying, "Jen, we eat that way every night." I definitely don't, but this is more about the underlying philosophy anyway...so bear with me.)

The idea being, you are using what's on hand. Hopefully it's something seasonal that you picked up this weekend thinking you might use it, but weren't sure how. Or it's those rogue carrots in the back of your vegetable drawer that you know you will be throwing out in two weeks when they have shrivelled up and died. Lonely. Forgotten.

This is how our (great) grandmothers cooked. In the winter they only had access to root vegetables, canned beans and maybe some canned tomatoes...why, hello minestrone soup.

I took the challenge tonight. Going in expecting to make a soup because (1) I'm getting over the flu and (2) it really is the easiest solution when working with a mishmash of ingredients.

• 1 potato, the last remaining soldier whose brothers were used in a dinner party two weeks ago
• 3 carrots from the stupid 5 lb. bag I bought last week
• 1 onion because I never remember if I have onions in the house when food shopping and subsequently have 5 on hand
• 2 cloves garlic (see the bit about the onion)
• chicken broth
• splash of heavy cream (leftover from a brunch I hosted this weekend and made fresh whipped cream...yum)
• 1 spring of rosemary that I've managed to not kill from my indoor herb garden
• the last remnants of a box of fusilli pasta I unearthed when I cleaned the pantry last week
• vegetable broth (because I left my soup simmering too long and needed to add more liquid so we weren't eating paste for dinner)
• 1 bunch of arugula, because it was there and I was getting carried away with using everything I could find (we consequently will have nothing to eat for the rest of the week except for this soup)

Voila! Dinner. And a really good one too. Now it may not be the most elegant dish around, but it's freaking delicious AND it used up ingredients I would have otherwise let die a most inexcusable death in my refrigerator.

So, what will/did you make?