What I learned yesterday
Yesterday I made some spinach macaroni casserole and realised some things…
If you’re not sure about an ingredient, google it!
The recipe included something called “ingredients for thick chicken soup” so I figured it meant some frozen vegetables that are recommended in a chicken soup. I searched the freezers at the grocery store and didn’t find anything fitting so I bought a bag of mixed veggies that I really like. While munching away on the finished casserole I decided to check what that certain ingredient really was: soup powder! That explains a lot…
Frozen spinach takes a long time to thaw.
…Especially without a microwave oven. I bought a bag of spinach cubes, put them in a bowl and let them sit on the counter. When I got around to the step where I was supposed to mix the spinach with the macaroni I poked at the cubes and realised they were still hard as bricks! I don’t have a microwave oven yet so I held the bowl over the boiling macaroni pot and finally boiled some water and submerged the bowl there. It took a while but eventually I was able to break the cubes and mix them with the macaroni.
500 g of macaroni needs a big pot to cook
I haven’t bought any pots or pans yet so all I’ve got is a medium-sized pot from home (maybe 2-3 litres). This recipe needed half a kilogram of macaroni and while I was emptying the bag in the pot, it filled up pretty quickly. I had to cook the macaroni in two batches which meant double the cooking time. A good thing I suppose, the spinach had more time to thaw…
I cannot chop onions very well.
I don’t know if I used a wrong kind of a knife but I wasn’t able to chop the onions finely enough. There weren’t huge chunks but some bigger pieces were left.
All’s good though. The food is edible (and not bad at all), just not exactly what the recipe maker intended… I may be too embarrassed to eat it at work so I’ll have many weekends’ worth of food in the freezer. When I’m done with those, I’ll have to make it again some time — with the correct ingredients.
It looks like it would taste good. You don’t always have to go by the recipe, they’re only their for guidance, you get to put in what you’ve got or what you think would taste good.
And what does that mean, “too embarrassed to take it to work”? People are envious of home-cooked meals. They don’t know how it’s ’supposed’ to look. Take it. Enjoy it. Nobody’s really looking at your food any way.
Comment by jafer — May 18 @ 19:05
Yeah, I’m planning to. I decided it doesn’t matter what it looks like. (But tomorrow I’m taking the rest of my couscous-chickpea-chicken extravaganza.)
Comment by Minna — May 18 @ 22:27