I cook some pretty tasty food most of the time, but I don't consider myself a chef of any caliber. I don't particularly like following recipes (although I enjoy reading them for inspiration). I've had no training to speak of, unless you count watching my late father cook when I was a child.
What I do love is just throwing things together to see what happens. That's undisciplined, I know, but it makes both cooking and dining an adventure when I'm in the kitchen. Adventure = fun, so, of course, I love it.
Last night necessity directed my cooking. Little Sister had brought us some fresh spinach that was not so fresh. She had bought herself too much and needed to offload some before it passed its expiration date, which was imminent. I actually didn't get around to the spinach until a day or two after that date, so it was getting rather urgent to do something with it. Rather than make a salad, I decided to cook it.
First, I chopped some fresh garlic and threw that in the bottom of a casserole dish. I washed and tore the spinach (picking out a couple of limp leaves) and tossed that into the dish. I chopped up some green onions and . . . tossed 'em into the dish. I opened a can of slices tomatoes (Italian seasoning) and poured that in, liquid and all. Finally, I sliced some yellow summer squash and placed that on top of what was in the casserole dish. A little salt, a little pepper, a quick toss, and it all went into the oven along with a roast.
I kept an eye on the spinach, pulling it out when the squash was looking soft. How long that took, I couldn't say (more indiscipline with the clock), but I could guess at 30 minutes. The idea was to cook the spinach and onions without turning the squash to mush. I was close enough, I think.
The resulting dish ("Spinach Hodgepodge"???) was quite tasty. I did add a little salt at the table (I almost always do anyway, since I undersalt most of my dishes when cooking), but otherwise the dish needed nothing. The squash had just enough crunch, the tomatoes added a touch of acid, and the whole combination complemented the roast beef nicely.
This time I got pretty lucky and "just throwing things together" worked out well. The low carb count was an added bonus.
2 comments:
The spinach dish sounds pretty good. You could probably use squashes also.
Your Cuz Pat
Right. I used yellow squash, but I think I might try it again with zucchini. There's another summer squash (pattycake?) that I would like to get my hands on. That one would be nice also.
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