Don't Lose Hope
There come a time in every cooks life when she (I'm going to be sexist) decides to experiment with new types of meals. Perhaps she wants to make dishes inspired by a different culture's fare. Maybe she wants to try foods from a different sort of diet (vegetarian, raw, etc.). Or, maybe, she is wanting to try using an ingredient she likes, but doesn't have much experience cooking. So, she goes to bed with a resolve to find some sources of inspiration in the morning. Hopefully one of those dishes will become a new go-to favorite! This is what I was determined to do. My family went with a group to Texas de Brazil--a very nice Brazilian steak house. We enjoyed the cold bar, the hot bar, and the incredible amount of meat carved table-side for us. It was tasty, but left me wanting a vegetarian diet. That meant one thing: I had to learn how to cook beans for our protein source. My mother agreed. We both like beans. However, aside from the 15 bean Holiday Soup recipe we make during the cold months, we don't really eat them all that much, probably because my dad doesn't like them. So I went to bed with a full tummy with visions of finding and customizing a new bean dish that even my dad might like.
The next morning I began my online perusal. I had saved a link to a slideshow of vegetarian entertainment dishes put out by the New York Times, and while some looked good they either weren't what I wanted or were too complicated for what I was hoping to make. So, I followed a few links on the NYTimes website until I got to a recipe of white beans (a favorite) cooked with lots (like, 4-5 cups) of chopped celery with tomato sauce. I thought it sounded good. Since my dad despises everything about celery (look, smell, taste, texture, sound...), my mom and I decided it would be a good dish to make while he was out of town.
Yesterday we picked up our ingredients, and this afternoon I started the recipe. Everything was going well until I got to the sentence, "Add the sauteed celery mix and cooked beans to a casserole dish. Stir in the tomato sauce. Add enough bean juice and/or broth to cover by an inch..." Wait... Cooked beans. Mostly cooked celery... This isn't a soup recipe... Why am I covering my cooked food with an unmeasured amount of liquid in a pan of unspecified size and baking it covered in the oven for an hour? Despite my objections, I did it anyway. It came out looking pretty much exactly like it looked going in: cabbage soup with celery instead of cabbage. I was slightly disappointed. I tasted it thinking I'd just add some cooked rice to it. It tasted like cabbage soup with celery instead of cabbage. Hmm... I had two choices. Scrap the dish, or try to save it. Since it tasted and looked like cabbage soup (with lots of celery in it), I decided to to save it. I had a small head of cabbage and some potatoes, so I cut them up tiny, cooked them, splashed them with white wine, added the celery soup, and now it is on the stove. I'm going to stir in some lemon juice to brighten the flavor.
Don't become discouraged by a bad recipe or poorly written one. It is not your fault if you do everything you're supposed to and it doesn't turn out as it should. Simply try something else! Rely on your instincts, too. If it doesn't look right after you read through the recipe and envision yourself making it, look for similar recipes for comparison. Don't give up hope when cooking. Set yourself up for success by gradually incorporating new ideas, techniques, and concepts into your meals. And allow yourself the luxury to mess up every now and then. In this recipe's case, I think the author intended for the beans to go in the oven raw, but, I'm not sure I will even try to adjust it. I found a recipe for cabbage soup with white beans that I think will be my new recipe find from this adventure. I look forward to finding and trying new recipes. Does anyone have any yummy bean recipes they'd like to share?
The next morning I began my online perusal. I had saved a link to a slideshow of vegetarian entertainment dishes put out by the New York Times, and while some looked good they either weren't what I wanted or were too complicated for what I was hoping to make. So, I followed a few links on the NYTimes website until I got to a recipe of white beans (a favorite) cooked with lots (like, 4-5 cups) of chopped celery with tomato sauce. I thought it sounded good. Since my dad despises everything about celery (look, smell, taste, texture, sound...), my mom and I decided it would be a good dish to make while he was out of town.
Yesterday we picked up our ingredients, and this afternoon I started the recipe. Everything was going well until I got to the sentence, "Add the sauteed celery mix and cooked beans to a casserole dish. Stir in the tomato sauce. Add enough bean juice and/or broth to cover by an inch..." Wait... Cooked beans. Mostly cooked celery... This isn't a soup recipe... Why am I covering my cooked food with an unmeasured amount of liquid in a pan of unspecified size and baking it covered in the oven for an hour? Despite my objections, I did it anyway. It came out looking pretty much exactly like it looked going in: cabbage soup with celery instead of cabbage. I was slightly disappointed. I tasted it thinking I'd just add some cooked rice to it. It tasted like cabbage soup with celery instead of cabbage. Hmm... I had two choices. Scrap the dish, or try to save it. Since it tasted and looked like cabbage soup (with lots of celery in it), I decided to to save it. I had a small head of cabbage and some potatoes, so I cut them up tiny, cooked them, splashed them with white wine, added the celery soup, and now it is on the stove. I'm going to stir in some lemon juice to brighten the flavor.
Don't become discouraged by a bad recipe or poorly written one. It is not your fault if you do everything you're supposed to and it doesn't turn out as it should. Simply try something else! Rely on your instincts, too. If it doesn't look right after you read through the recipe and envision yourself making it, look for similar recipes for comparison. Don't give up hope when cooking. Set yourself up for success by gradually incorporating new ideas, techniques, and concepts into your meals. And allow yourself the luxury to mess up every now and then. In this recipe's case, I think the author intended for the beans to go in the oven raw, but, I'm not sure I will even try to adjust it. I found a recipe for cabbage soup with white beans that I think will be my new recipe find from this adventure. I look forward to finding and trying new recipes. Does anyone have any yummy bean recipes they'd like to share?
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