Did you ever notice that recipes and meal ideas are everywhere? There are shows dedicated to cooking, blogs featuring everything from crock-pot to freeze ahead and more, and then there are other sites like Pinterest. All with ideas. We are no longer limited to cookbooks or family recipes or even how our ancestors cooked to come up with good food for our families to eat. Case in point: Meatball Sub on a Stick. The recipe and mouthwatering picture for this showed up in my newsfeed on Facebook. And I admit that it caught my attention. It sure did look good. And I was pretty sure the pickier eaters in my family would love it. So I decided to save it for a rainy day.
Today was that rainy, well, okay, foggy day and I was willing to give it a try. Here is where experience and knowing what works comes in handy. Sure, I could have followed the recipe exactly as written. Or, I could modify it to use what I already had on hand or include what I learned the hard way. This particular recipe called for ground turkey, bread crumbs, seasonings, and Pillsbury breadstick dough. Experience has taught me that ground turkey meatballs are not popular in my household. I have better success with it if I mix it with something else. So my first replacement was ground beef for turkey. Second, I have made meatballs and meatloaf enough times that if I forget the eggs, it forgets to stick together and I ended up with crumbly meat. I'm not sure why this recipe did not call for eggs, but I made sure to put some in. Like I said, I know what happens if I forget them! Finally, I am not a big fan of convenience food items like Pillsbury. I would much rather make my own dough, so I made a rich combination of a sourdough egg bread. Very rich and filling.
My point in sharing all of this is that you don't have to follow recipes exactly, to the letter. Sometimes experimentation can be the best teacher. You learn by literally getting your hands dirty what works and what doesn't work, like the eggs I mentioned. I don't have to have them in my bread, but experience has taught me that it makes a much richer, softer bread. And likewise, leaving them out of my meatballs and meatloaf just leads to a disappointing mess. Spices are always suggestions! If you like more heat, play with white pepper, paprika, cayenne, and cardamom. Prefer savory? Check out what butter, wine, sugar, and cracked black pepper can do. Pay attention to what everyone raves over and what you have to bribe your kids to eat. See if you can get them to describe what they don't like about something? Is it how it looked? Felt (texture)? Smelled? Or tasted. Maybe it's too salty or too sweet or packs to much of a kick. Playing with seasonings can also change completely the mood of the meal from warm comfort food to hot and spicy foods.
Get in that kitchen and start thinking outside the cookbook and your old standby recipes. See what you can do with what you are comfortable cooking to take it up a notch. I'm not much for science and chemistry - unless it involves food in my kitchen! Experiment and have fun. You might surprise yourself and actually look forward to making dinner each day!
Be blessed.
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