I have always been a recipe girl.
I learned at a young age that if I followed the recipe on the page very closely, it wasn’t too hard to make food taste good. I never strayed very far from what was written on the page.
But marrying Ben started to change all that.
His family never uses a recipe. They just figure things out as they go along. Ben cooks the same way, and there are some things that just taste better when he makes it. He knows how to give flavour to things.
When I developed some food allergies, I had trouble finding recipes to fit my specific needs. I had to become more flexible and able to adapt recipes to fit my needs. I started to learn how much fun it could be to ditch the recipe and just wing it.
Then last year, for my birthday dinner at a restaurant, I had the best pasta dish ever. Although I could never make it taste the same at home, I sure tried.
The result is a pasta dish we make regularly around here. It is my favorite thing to make and inhale. Er…I mean, politely eat in small, delicate bites.
We tried to come up with a name for it together as a family, and for awhile we called it “The Amazing Adventures of Pete Pepper and Billy Broccoli”, but that’s kind of a long name, and it fizzled out. Now we just call it “That Pasta Dish”.
So, without any measurements (because now we’re all casual about that kind of thing around here!), I share with you my very own pasta recipe:
Pasta (we use rice noodles, because we do that gluten-free thing around here)
Steamed broccoli and peppers
Grilled Chicken, cut into small pieces
Olive Oil
Salt, Basil, Garlic
Cook your pasta, steam your veggies, cut up your grilled chicken, and mix it all together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together oil, salt, basil, and garlic. Pour over the pasta mixture and mix it all up.
Um, and that’s it. Very, very simple. Not really all that impressive, but I love it and could eat it forever.
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Now it’s your turn! What’s your favorite food to eat for supper? Do you use recipes or fly by the seat of your pants? (I guess that’s not a very kitchen-appropriate expression, but you know what I mean!)
Ordinary Days 
I love, love, LOVE recipe books. I love to look at all the meals and imagine how they taste and then I love to try the best tasting ones. I generally follow a recipe the first time and then see how I need to change it so I do a little of both – follow and come up with my own. My favorite foods are Italian (L.O.V.E!) and a good mashed potato-meat-stuffing-fresh-baked-buns kind of a meal. Though I really, truly enjoy a good Ethiopian platter of injera and all the various stews. Oh, and I love Indian. Needless to say, we also love trying new restaurants and wandering outside of the North American fare.
I always follow a recipe exactly. Les is the opposite though, he wings it. Although lately I’ve had to learn to “wing it” with a few things myself. My Mom often cooks without following a recipe too ~ so when she makes something and I ask for the recipe…well…she just sort of tells me what she does, without any specific measurements of anything. And then I try it at home. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
My favorite dinner until recently was spaghetti. But now since I learned how to make it is mexican rice and chicken en mole. I learned from my mother in law. It’s the best!
Sounds great! Care to share some recipes?!;)
Some of Mark’s and my favorite are Tajine recipies from Northern Africa…we had ours from Morocco. It is kinda like a slow cooker on the stove…so very good and tender. One that is a treat to eat is Chicken with Apricots…very good.
That sounds very delicious and adventurous!
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I wrote it down and I am going to try it soon. I am calling it “Kendra’s Pasta Supper”.
ha! I’ve never had food named after me before!:)
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