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Really Cookin’!

34 Comments

A couple of days ago LJB mentioned finding a recipe and sticking to it. I’ve been thinking about her comments a lot, since I am the exact opposite.

I had a lot of vacation days to use up, so have been off since the 22nd and I have been on a cooking jag.  There are two main reasons for this.  One of the reasons we’ve already discussed recently – TOMATOES!  The other reason is that I’m a morning person. As much as I love to cook, I am just not up for cooking after I get home from work.  Warmed up leftovers (or take out) in my jammies are pretty common fare for me at night.

So the combination of many mornings at home and my glut of tomatoes had me cooking up a storm. I started my vacation by dragging out about a dozen of my cookbooks; for some reason that I don’t even remember now, I pulled out a lot of vegan cookbooks.  Then I flipped through them and used little slips of paper to mark some of the recipes that looked good to me.  I marked about 16 recipes – only one of which I had ever made before.  Then YA looked through and vetoed a few.  I shopped for six recipes and then got going.  I did the last one today – vegan lasagna rolls (which ended up being not vegan).

Here’s what got made on my vacation: Fried Bread Panzanella, Roasted Carrots w/ Parmesan & Garlic, Pico de Gallo, Pasta w/ Tomatoes & Olives, Roasted Tomato & Garlic Sauce, Smash Potatoes w/ Pesto & Parmesan, Apple Honey & Arugula Pizza and today’s Lasagna Rolls. Now we have enough leftovers to last another week or so.

When is repetition good for you? Or not?

34 thoughts on “Really Cookin’!”

  1. I think repetition is good, especially when eating leftovers. Husband gets bored with repetitive meals, hence our full freezers. He has reluctantly agreed that we need to eat the leftovers in the freezer before he cooks any new entrees.

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    2. i have a problem that may help or it may mess you up
      i cook something up and then when it goes into the tupperware it is sitting there and i know i need to get it eaten because no one else in my house eats my concoctions and so instead of weating the same thing that went into the tupperware the stuff in there needs to call out to me and tell me what to add to it to end up with the call of the moment. then i get a bowl of a different tasting thing and that goes into the tupperware. that often ends up in an omlette or a cassarole or as chinese food with a little hiosan sauce added. a side or broccolli and garlic goes nicely with it and then that goes into a tupperware…

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      2. From my ancient Joy of Cooking: “The minister’s wife set her luncheon casserole down with a flourish and waited for grace. ‘It seems to me,’ murmured her husband, ‘that I have blessed a good deal of this material before’ “

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  2. Repetition is good when the flooring is all the same color and run in all the same direction. Easy peasy.
    Repetition is bad when the flooring is all the same color and run in all the same direction. Boring.

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    1. the art of mixing the different tones and subtle differences in the floor tile world is the difference between a job i like and one i dont. i often wonder why the guy doing it doesnt care or predetermine how to lay the pattern out so it is interesting and pleasing. i know its just a matter of taste but i agree with my decisions about taste every time

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  3. RE: recipes – I do have a few that I make over and over when I’m short on time, esp. an egg bake that I take to pot lucks. That said, I almost always add something from the fridge that needs using, so it always comes out slightly different.
    Thinking…

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  4. When repetition is an expedient—when it lets you get on to more engaging matters—it’s a good thing. Not everything needs to be an experiment.
    When repetition becomes ritual, when something can’t change because the participants won’t let it change and when, going into an event I know exactly how it will unfold, I quickly lose interest.

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    2. i heard an actor one time refer to performing in a broadway play as living out ground hog day where the same scene and same line get played in the same way. day after day….that darn shakespeare … no room for artistic differences

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  6. A strange part of Sandy’s mental confusion: we have set ways to do things around the apartment and have had for years. Repetition, if you will. For instance we have two bottles of filtered water in the fridge. We always pour from the one on the left, instead of pouring from either or. I watch them. That way we do not run low. But all of a sudden she pours from either. Family came over. They always drink the water, but we did not have enough cold water. No big thing, but she does this in all sorts of ways. I have to stay alert.

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      1. Been reading about lupus and confusion is a possible effect. Confusion more than memory loss it seems, although she has both. Strange thing about lupus: all the effects of the lupus drugs are the same as the effects of lupus.

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        1. homeopathy is a version of medicine i hooked up with years ago. the remedies (essence of nuts and berries) all have the same result if taken by a healthy person as the problem they are trying to solve in a sick one. the premise is that your body used to be fine and you need to plug in a minuscule addition of the missing chemical form nature to bring you back around. it deals with the cause not the symptom. the guy that introduced me to the branch is a big dog in california that deals with bigger picture stuff. if you are interested i could put you in touch to see if he has an idea about sandy and possible remedies.

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    2. There is someone in this household who does this sort of thing all the time. One example is eggs. This person likes to line up the egg cartons side by side i.e. so you can see all three cartons on the shelf. So I look at the cartons and think, okay we have 2 1/2 dozen eggs, only to find out each carton has between 2-5 eggs in them. That’s why I prefer to line up the egg cartons front to back so you see only one carton at a time – and hopefully use all the eggs from one carton before starting the next carton.

      This happens with all sorts of stuff other than eggs, from milk to salsa to peanut butter (opening the new jar before the old one is emptied), but eggs are one of the most annoying examples because you can’t tell by looking at the carton how many eggs are in there.

      It’s a small annoyance, but an annoyance nevertheless.

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        1. And then there’s the empty containers…you think you have enough of a certain food and then find out the container is empty.

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  7. i get to a task end of the equation every now and again and when i do the evolution of ritual is an interesting process. i like to think of things to do and ways to get them done but so much requires just doing it that the process becomes the focus. that thinking about ideas, it a whole other thing

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  8. The best repetition I can think of is my t’ai chi practice, usually Tues and Friday mornings. It is slow. I position myself so that I can see a “corner person” (they know what they’re doing) no matter which direction we end up. I’ve got down the basics, but have tried it at home and never get all the way through. More repetition is the key.

    On the other end of the spectrum are the earworms that won’t go away even after a couple of DAYS.

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