I looked at the cover of the cookbook I am working my way through, and noticed that it claims to have “650 recipes for EVERYTHING you’ll ever want to make.” I am pretty sure I will never be able to cook 650 different recipes even if I follow the recipe for every meal we eat every day for a year. Even so, I am continuing with my plan to cook my way through the book. I will have to eliminate some of the ideas if the meal has more tomato than I can avoid, like spaghetti sauces and pizzas with red sauce. That is fine. I am going to do what I can do, and no more. And I will eat what I can eat, and no more.
This week I made meatloaf from the cookbook. They had me shape two smaller loafs to speed up cooking, and since I have three of us eating right now I shaped three. The only other difference from how I have cooked meatloaf in the past was the cookbook had me brown each meatloaf in a pan before baking them in the oven. We all liked the meal, but I didn’t see it as much different than things I have made in the past.
I didn’t want to go to the grocery store and I had a bag of dried beans, so I looked through the book for any recipe that would work with them. I found White bean rosemary Gratin with Parmesan cheese croutons, and glancing through the ingredients list I thought I had everything. The recipe calls for canned beans so I had to go ahead and soak then cook the beans before starting the meal. Then I assembled, and as I was preparing I noticed I needed fresh kale. I have no fresh kale. Back in the pantry I found a can of cooked turnip greens, and opened that. I substituted banana ketchup, again, for the tomato paste, and fixed the meal. I almost never follow a recipe perfectly, even when that is my actual goal. The beans were my favorite meal of the week, but the guys preferred the meatloaf. And my son reminded me that cooking an entire book would include dessert. Next week, sweets with the meals.
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