My relationship with Food
I believe I grew up with a fortunate knowledge of food. My father was in the restaurant business and my mother was an avid cook and a very good one at that. Over the years I have grown to love and cherish the excitement that the textures, flavours and colours of food bring to life.
When I left university the joy of leaving behind "res" food was overwhelming and I began cooking with great gusto! I thought that baking was my weak point as the restriction of having to measure ingredients seemed to put a damper on my cooking spirit. Spurred on for the need for variety and sometimes a general lack of ingredients at home, I began to experiment with different ingredients, methods and recipes. Once I had exhausted my family with all sorts of meals, it was requested that I venture into baking - and I took with it my general lack of adherence to recipes and measurements. Who needs to follow a recipe anyway?
We all know the saying that "if you want a different result you need to change what you have done" and I think I took it too far in the kitchen. My amazing and um, interesting, cooking adventures have yielded some of the following results:
I have many (many!) more strange tales, like cooking our pepperdews to pickle them and then blending them to make chutney (the mustard seeds and dry bay leaves weren't a hit when blitz into tiny shards). All I can say that I have had loads of fun and take great joy of going into our garden and picking all our own herbs, veggies and some fruit.
From experience, life won't end if you don't get the scone right - I was politely told that I should have used a cutter yet the flavour was awesome. So make merry, have fun and enjoy the glass of red wine whilst you cook!
When I left university the joy of leaving behind "res" food was overwhelming and I began cooking with great gusto! I thought that baking was my weak point as the restriction of having to measure ingredients seemed to put a damper on my cooking spirit. Spurred on for the need for variety and sometimes a general lack of ingredients at home, I began to experiment with different ingredients, methods and recipes. Once I had exhausted my family with all sorts of meals, it was requested that I venture into baking - and I took with it my general lack of adherence to recipes and measurements. Who needs to follow a recipe anyway?
We all know the saying that "if you want a different result you need to change what you have done" and I think I took it too far in the kitchen. My amazing and um, interesting, cooking adventures have yielded some of the following results:
- Family favourites and regularly baked nut rusks have sometimes been put together with no eggs; syrup instead of sugar; and cornflakes instead of All-Bran. I do this rather often yet seldom do I consult the recipe - once the batter is together I usually try fix the solution (more oats if it's too runny, another egg, and always too many nuts and seeds).
- I bought a very large bag of cranberries and decided to try and make biscuits, using stone-ground maize & oats, and briefly perused a baking recipe book for approximate measurements. My first attempt resulted in little rock-cakes and encouraged by their taste, I made another batch yet I replaced the butter with olive oil (healthier version) and added eggs to bind the mixture. I realised there was no way I could roll them into tiny balls - my biscuit 'batter' (labelled loosely) became the most delicious muesli.
- Every stir fry I make tastes differently yet I don't do anything new. I once tried to make a peanut butter sauce and cooked the chicken pieces in peanut butter - needless to say I'm grateful the kitchen doesn't have a fire alarm.
- My childhood cooked meal is a dish made with prunes, butternut and chicken pieces. Although the recipe has evolved over time and we now place fresh thyme and sage underneath the skin (the herbs are purely for flavour and the skin prevents the meat from drying out and is optional to remove it before eating). My biggest faux pas is pouring about 3 litres of water into the pot as if I was making soup. There was a lot of liquid reduction that took place.
- I went through a stage of eliminating all forms of gluten from my diet. When I was craving something baked (and no it wasn't an apple), I grabbed my iPhone and searched for any recipe that Jamie Oliver or Nigella have posted (my go-to searches) involving unusual grains. My date and sorghum muffins turned out to have incredible taste yet were on the dry side. FYI: When a recipe says a grain requires extra liquid, try stick to their suggestions - but only marginally. Anyway, the muffins were eaten at work - colleagues are not as particular as family.
I have many (many!) more strange tales, like cooking our pepperdews to pickle them and then blending them to make chutney (the mustard seeds and dry bay leaves weren't a hit when blitz into tiny shards). All I can say that I have had loads of fun and take great joy of going into our garden and picking all our own herbs, veggies and some fruit.
From experience, life won't end if you don't get the scone right - I was politely told that I should have used a cutter yet the flavour was awesome. So make merry, have fun and enjoy the glass of red wine whilst you cook!