So, I tend to do my grocery shopping on Friday night or Saturday morning. I buy the ingredients I need for the coming week. Well, usually I buy the ingredients for the coming week. Except sometimes I forget to buy something by not remembering to put it on my shopping list. I use the store’s app for coupons and making a shopping list so usually I am pretty good at getting everything that I need. However, this past weekend I completely forgot to get one crucial ingredient for my culinary plans. My initial plans included me making chicken enchiladas with refried beans and Spanish rice and then later mixing the rice with other stuff to make stuffed bell peppers. This is not what will be made this week as I completely forgot to buy more flour tortillas. I am sure that it is possible to make them from scratch but I did not plan for that level of effort.
I think that it is a bit obvious that I either need to make another trip to the store or change my cooking plans for the week. I will not be making that additional trip to the store. Instead, I think I might end up making enchilada style stuffed peppers where my typical enchilada mix ends up inside the peppers rather than whatever chicanery I was going to come up with to stuff the peppers. That may turn out really good, flavor wise anyway. But one dish is not enough to make it through a week. I need another.
While watching a variety of YouTube videos, among them videos by a British woman renovating a French chateau, I had a source of inspiration. I wonder if I could try making a version of that very British classic: shepherds pie. Now, I should fully disclose that I don’t remember ever having shepherds pie so I am not familiar with its flavors and intricacies. However, I do like the homey and familiar flavors that it is supposed to represent. So this dish might end up being the second meal for the week. I shall have to do more research into its flavors and construction but I think that it might be doable based on what I have in my pantry and freezer already. So yeah, because I was a silly person who couldn’t remember one of the most important items to her culinary plans, I will instead endeavor to make a dish that I have never eaten let alone try to make. This will be very interesting.
I consider this week of attempting dishes that I have never made to be a continuation of the previous week. Last week I tried to make my own chicken and rice dish that was supposed to be heavily inspired by Hyderabad style chicken biryani. My housemate back in college made this dish very well as she was from the city. Now she very kindly would reduce the level of spice for me and the other housemate. I should mention that her reduction meant that it was at the high end of my spice tolerance. Now I miss that dish quite heavily and I have not been made aware of any restaurant within driving distance that serves it. So I attempted to cook something reminiscent of biryani. Now I did a lot of changes which include substituting sour cream for yogurt, using a slowcooker instead of marinating and frying, and barely attempting to measure the amount of spices. I also used white rice (sacrilege, I know) instead of something far more appropriate like basmati rice. The result was something with a fairly different texture and that was not nearly as spicy as it should have been and definitely not worth the effort to make it. Alas, I shall have to try it again when I have the time and ambition to cook it properly. I also need to get the rest of the spices required such as mace and saffron. I digress.
So I tried last week to cook a version of something that I have only tasted and never cooked. That attempt failed at the original goal but was still edible. I hope that the coming week’s cooking attempts turn out much better. We shall see. What kind of meal plan changes have you made by forgetting to buy a crucial item? Have you ever tried to make a version of a food that you have only eaten never made? Please answer below with your comments and thanks for reading.
unknownclimate 