What's Cooking (Take Four)

[Jenise]

Ah, that one. How were the stuffed peppers? I like your idea of using cauliflower as a carb alternative.

[Jenise]

Last night, caught unawares at dinner time as I am most nights because it's so boring to plan food for myself, I took a pkg of chicken thighs that I'd had other plans for, browned them lightly then added water, onion, two arbol chiles, and a bay leaf to make a classic chicken soup. Lazy, but still one of my favorite foods on earth. Feeling uninventive, however, I ate two of the thighs and stored the rest overnight. This morning I put it back on the stove with a big wedge of cabbage, and then promptly got distracted. By the time I got back, the cabbage was almost liquid. So now what? I had a rutabega given me by a friend who's leaving town for a month, and a container of Campari tomatoes that were shrivelling. Diced those up, added a teaspoon of paprika because it would add color and a teaspoon of dried dill weed because I almost never use it so this would be different, added Quebec seasoning for a more complex version of salt and a handful of ziti to bulk it out. The result was one of the most delicious soups I've had in a long time. The whole thing was just one haphazard move after another but the result is something deliciously special.

I think a lot of classic dishes got invented by accident or mistake. Consider Chinese pot sticker dumplings. I have no doubt that this dish came about because someone forgot about a pot of boiling gyozu dumplings until after all the water had boiled away and the dumplings were brown on the bottom.

-Paul W.