Experimental Moments

Over the past few weeks or more, I have had a few "experimental" moments in the kitchen. All this means, in my case is giving up some of my undue dependence on cookbooks. Here are brief reports on three such moments:

Pea Soup or Pea Puree? So, there I was, in front of the refrigerator. And there I was in front of the freezer. I wanted to create a nice meal, a bit more than just cooking, and there was not much there to use for a surprise spash of panache -- especially since it was (a) not my place and (b) I did not do the food shopping and . . . I had a blender, a microwave (and to be honest, downstairs, a gas stove, but hey, I was trying.) What could I do? Inspiration: a bag of frozen peas and a blender. Some almonds. Hmmm. Here's what I did:

1.Toss a few cups of frozen peas into a blender and run the darn thing til you produce a pea puree that is a consistency you like. Make it the consistency of soup even! What do use to thin it? I used a bit of milk. Not much. Just a bit. Hurrah.

2. Consider what spices are around and findable -- I used some cumin, and a bit of this and that.

3. Keep tasting.

4.Meanwhile, i melted some butter with a bit of cayenne and some brown sugar. Into this, I dropped some almonds. I immediately stopped heating the darn things. After they cooled and congealed, I chopped them. (And I ate a few.)

5. I warmed the pea soup (aka thinned, spiced pea puree) in the microwave and garnished with the chopped almonds. Voila! A success.

Carrot Soup or Carrot Puree? So, one of my flaws is if something works, I overdo it. I once owned 4 colors of the same parachute pants (think decades ago). I once made so much couscous I drove my main food audience into couscous aversion. So, once the pea experiment turned out well I tried a variant shortly thereafter with carrots. Great idea, but not quite right in the execution. And really, there is a limit to repetition. Here's what I did and a critique:

1. I finely chopped some ginger and put it into some very hot water in a blender (maybe 1/4 cup water and a tablespoon of ginger?) and let it sit for a while so the ginger-y tastiness would enter the water.

2. Then I stuck (ok, I chopped them a bit but not much) a bag of those organic baby carrots from a bag into the blender and blended away.

3. I served the carrots like a soup, with tiny cubes of goat cheese as garnish and a bit of jalapeno as well.

4. While this was ok, its main down side was texture. It just was a tad too chunky. And, it needed something to make it taste more like soup and less like carrot puree. More goat cheesewould have helped because its tartness helped mitigate the sweetness of the carrots. Still working on this one!

Trout Meuniere Goes Out to Play! Ok, I confess alll that is required to make this is to change what you add to the flour when you make trout meuniere. And all trout meuniere is is pan fried trout in butter; the trout is dredged in flour with salt and pepper. My modification: add loads of homemade curry powder to the flour. And then serve it with ginger-y potatoes. MMMMM. Click here for the recipe for the homemade curry powder, which comes from an old Cooking Light from which I often make lamb shank curry and tomato/onion/lime salad and raita and a version of mango chutney. (My copy is a messy mess. But still legible.) Who knew what that curry would do to transform trout.

So: my lesson learned. A little flexibility might help. Try an experiment. You never know.