Improv cooking
Oct. 9th, 2013 10:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidMost of my cooking isn't using recipes, so most of it could be considered improv, but these felt more daring, more unusual for me.
The other day I finally realized I was hungry but couldn't figure out what I wanted for breakfast. I thought about the vegetables I had around, imagining onions and tomatoes sauteing together, and then the word "pancake" meandered across the brain. So I sauteed an onion, a tomato, and a lot of scallions with some tandoori seasoning, then made a sort of pancake batter without eggs or milk, pouring it over the veggies. I covered the pot to let it cook more, flipping pieces of it at the very end. Verdict: yummy, but spicy enough to not be fore everyone.
The other thing I played with was a cake. Last week I made a vegan applesauce cake with raisins and walnuts. Yesterday I riffed off that kind of cake: I had overly-dried apricots I chopped up instead of raisins, and dried unsweetened coconut for the walnuts. For the applesauce, I had picked seeded green grapes the day before, and made them into grape juice. A quart of juice went into the fridge, and a day later, the more solid parts had settled. I poured the juice off for later, and used the solids to soak the fruit and nuts and instead of the applesauce. It turned out well.
(And it makes me wonder about the proliferation of cake mixes on the market, when so many cakes are easily made out of pantry ingredients.)
The other day I finally realized I was hungry but couldn't figure out what I wanted for breakfast. I thought about the vegetables I had around, imagining onions and tomatoes sauteing together, and then the word "pancake" meandered across the brain. So I sauteed an onion, a tomato, and a lot of scallions with some tandoori seasoning, then made a sort of pancake batter without eggs or milk, pouring it over the veggies. I covered the pot to let it cook more, flipping pieces of it at the very end. Verdict: yummy, but spicy enough to not be fore everyone.
The other thing I played with was a cake. Last week I made a vegan applesauce cake with raisins and walnuts. Yesterday I riffed off that kind of cake: I had overly-dried apricots I chopped up instead of raisins, and dried unsweetened coconut for the walnuts. For the applesauce, I had picked seeded green grapes the day before, and made them into grape juice. A quart of juice went into the fridge, and a day later, the more solid parts had settled. I poured the juice off for later, and used the solids to soak the fruit and nuts and instead of the applesauce. It turned out well.
(And it makes me wonder about the proliferation of cake mixes on the market, when so many cakes are easily made out of pantry ingredients.)