Karen/NoCA wrote:Because of Jenise's comment "Though my kitchen produces few repeats" it got me to thinking if other folks feel the same way about repeating excellent recipes. In my case, I have dozens of recipes that I make often.
I love trying new dishes, many of ethnic nature, and do so each week. Come winter I peruse my old Sunset books, family file, and other cookbooks for recipes I made for our children, and ones that Gene and I have come to love. Here is a list of just a few.
Tacos
Seafood Spaghetti
Seafood Chowder
Enchilada Pie
Lasagna
Cedar Plank Salmon
Grilled Halibut with pineapple spears
Cold Wheat Berry or Faro Salad with Tomatoes, Feta and Herbs
Pork Chops and Red Wine Rice Bake
Lemon Chicken
Roast Chicken
Tilapia and Israeli Couscous dish
Stuffed Cabbage Rolls
Turkey Burgers
Mexican Lasagna
Quesadillas
Tomato Paella
and so many more!
Karen, some of the things you mentioned are, to me, broad categories of things. Like tacos. We probably have tacos two or three times a year, but they're rarely the same. The ground turkey and rice filling I gave you a recipe for was the only one I'd call recurring--but even that has a tendency to change since I never use recipes. The recipe I gave you I had to write down as I went along in order to have something to post. That's an example of one of the millions of recipes I keep in my head--and it's not in exact quantities, just general proportions and the exact memory of a flavor. I remember tastes extraordinarily well, and can always find my way back.
Quesadillas is another--I probably make quesadillas once a year and they're a kitchen sink kind of thing, usually the result of having leftover flour tortillas and the ingredients are usually a vegetarian mix of cheese and green chiles and whatever else excites me that day. But recently I decided to make about 20 huge ones for a neighborhood wine tasting. I had about two cups of two fresh salsas I'd made myself leftover from another Mex meal, one red and one green, and I mixed them to sprinkle inside the pies. The cheese was going to be Tillamook medium because though I prefer sharp, Medium was half the price that day. Then I bought a pork sirloin which I roasted and chopped, not because I love pork quesadillas or had ever even had a pork quesadilla, but because pork is cheap and $6 would buy me all the meat I needed. But after tasting the combination of ingredients I planned to use in my stuffing I found them quite bland, so I coated the chopped pork with garlic salt and added handfuls of good Italian parm to the cheddar. Now THAT got me somewhere quite fabulous, but I had never done it before and will probably never do it again. It existed only for that moment based on the things I had on hand. Not that I wouldn't look forward to eating them exactly that way again, but the truth is I'm more likely to get a wild hair and decide to stuff the next quesadillas with something I've never put inside a flour tortilla before, like shredded beef and blue cheese.
Lasagna--here's another example. I posted a recipe about a year ago for the best lasagna I've ever had/made. Have I made it again? No. And when I do make another lasagna, as outstanding as that was it's just as likely that I'll make something new (chantarelle season is coming!) as make that again.
Point is I'm always improvising, and that's what makes cooking fun for me. Yes, certain techniques and combinations are sacrosanct, but my cooking is more about available ingredients and discovery than it is about recipes, and it's as true of food for me as it is of books and movies and travels--I'd rather do two things once than one thing twice.
