Replicating the Formula

Replicating the Formula

cooking at home

When hunger strikes and the thought of faster food arrives, I have a shortlist of chains I return to time and again. Of them, I am noticing a trend in my ordering that seems counterintuitive to how I have eaten for most of my life. I am the one who really does not like having food touch on my plate. I do not care for it one bit. So the mere fact that I return to Chipotle and Cava time and again to order bowls of food confounds those around me.

I love the Cava Greens and Grains Bowl and the Chipotle Salad bowl and it got me thinking. If I take the building blocks of these meals and put them together in my own kitchen, how would it taste? Not copying the actual recipe but the food formula, would it work for me.

I bought an InstantPot Duo Nova a few weeks ago and my favorite thing to make in it is rice. It’s quite good at it so, I thought, what if I added some Anduie Sausage to my rice and have the flavors go through. When it was done I spooned my rice and sausage over a bowl of spring mix and baby spinach and  I really liked it. It was a quick tasty dinner bowl and lunch the next day in about 15 minutes.

I’m more than likely going to keep experimenting to see what else can be concocted.

Extra Tomatoes and YouTube

Extra Tomatoes and YouTube

cooking at home

Who can resist a bargain? I can’t. I needed a tomato or two for Christmas Eve nachos but the store had a bag of tomatoes on the vine on sale. Of course, I buy a bag. I used what I needed and the remainder hung out in my refrigerator. This is where YouTube comes in. They have videos of all kinds of people telling how to do all kinds of things. You listen to them for too long and you will begin to think to yourself “Yes, I can make over my small space; Yes, I can create an in-law suite from shipping containers in my backyard; Yes, I can make soup from scratch.”

I added a video to my playlist from Goodful and a young lady demonstrated how to make tomato soup from scratch and, this time, it was true. I can make tomato soup from scratch. The recipe was simple and straight forward and now I have servings of homemade soup in my fridge for the weekend.

Happy Hour at Red Salt

Happy Hour at Red Salt

eating out

BABY BURGERS
2 sliders with cheddar, bacon, onion jam, burger sauce
LOADED POTATO CAKES
cheddar, bacon, scallions, spicy sour cream
Iron Skillet to the Rescue

Iron Skillet to the Rescue

cooking at home

Woke up on a Saturday morning to my stream of YouTube videos on my Roku. In the past, I have spent a ridiculous number of hours on Pinterest pinning recipes with a variety of results. Some recipes seem to skip steps or have details that are missing. Some others seem to be missing ingredients that I think of as essential to the taste of the food and when I follow the recipe as is, it tastes like something was missing. Although I have not given up on my Pinterest based food, I have broadened by the hunt, which led me to America’s Test Kitchen channel on YouTube.

I was no stranger to America’s Test Kitchen on PBS, I’ve watched on TV for a while but the YouTube channel, for me, is a game changer. I was able to locate the information I specifically wanted from a tried and true source and watched it repeatedly to make sure I got the information I was trying to utilize.

The video I located included how to “Get the Cast Iron Crisp Roast Butterflied Chicken Recipe”. I was inspired to go out my local HomeGoods (like I needed an excuse) to purchase my own Lodge Cast Iron Skillet. I also visited my local Trader Joes and picked up a package of chicken legs because, well, it was simply cheaper than a whole chicken and we eat more legs than thighs and breast. I returned home in time to get cooking. I followed the video and was chowing down in about an hour or so.