What do you do if you are in the midst of preparing a recipe and you discover you’re missing one ingredient?
This is what happened to my fabulous coach Rachelle Disbennett-Lee’s husband, Adrian, the other day.
Now that Adrian is retired, he will be taking over more of the household duties, including shopping for and making meals when Rachelle is working late. Luckily, they have been Glorious One-Pot Meals fans for years, so this part should be a slam dunk. Right?
On his first night as the official “chef,” Adrian selected a recipe (Pasta Primavera) and went to the grocery store to collect the ingredients. He came home and began to assemble the meal. Halfway through, he hit a stumbling block: instead of a jar of artichoke hearts, he had mistakenly purchased marinated garlic cloves! Uh-oh!
Oblivious to this crisis, Rachelle was working away in her office, looking forward to the wafting aroma that would tell her dinner was ready — a dinner she didn’t have to cook!
Poor Adrian! His lack of experience and confidence in the kitchen thwarted him, and when Rachelle emerged after her conference call, sniffing expectantly, he suggested they go out to T.G.I.F. for dinner. Becuase he didn’t have the artichoke hearts, he felt he could not move forward and complete the recipe. His first attempt at dinner was a flop!
Now, now, Rachelle soothed. What else do we have in the house that we can use instead of artichoke hearts? With Glorious One-Pot Meals, you can freely adjust any recipe to include or avoid any ingredients. Don’t have artichoke hearts? How about spinach, cabbage, or kale? She ended up adding some carrots and spinach leaves to the pot, as well as using some of those marinated garlic cloves (yum!) and rescuing the meal.
As a cookbook author, this incident provided a good reminder for me that many people lack confidence in the kitchen and believe they must follow a recipe to the letter when cooking. Let me take this opportunity to assure my readers that this is not the case when you’re cooking Glorious One-Pot Meals! You should feel free to substitute, add, or subtract any item(s) from a recipe at any time, and still be assured of creating a delicious meal.
Life is too short to be scared in the kitchen. Live passionately, eat heartily, and cook with abandon!
