The way I cook

Maybe something needs to be explained here at the beginning of this blog. I used to cook unGodly amounts of food every time I got in the kitchen. What resulted from that was a lot of leftovers and wasted food. It actually discouraged me from cooking and made it a chore for me. Recently, I started up a diet where I am part of a team competing against other teams following the Paleo Diet. The Paleo Diet eliminates all processed foods, all sugars, all dairy, and all bread. What you're left with are the basics: meat, fruit, veggies, nuts, seeds, berries. Nothing incredibly exciting.

So, knowing I was going to be faced with food boredom, I started to try to remedy and resolve the issues I once had with cooking. When I follow other people's recipes I end up with too much food at once and I don't know what to do with it other than give it out to my friends. I love being able to do that, but, man, it's expensive to buy groceries for all those preplanned recipes only to end up giving most of the food away!! And thanks to the diet, I have to modify most of them anyway.

Most of my meals are actually completed quite successfully in my single 10" skillet. And they're faster now that I just cook one portion at a time. If you happen to be cooking for more than one, this might be a good thing to take into consideration that if you try to emulate my recipes it MIGHT take you a little longer and will most certainly use more food. Good Lord, it would be something if the meals I make and eat would actually feed two people. I'd feel like a certified fatty then.

I also might start off making one thing, and then end up doing what I call morphing or mutating in the middle of making it. I'll change my mind about what flavors I want to bring out right in the middle of cooking.

I go to three grocery stores to get the best deals that I can on my food. Walmart, Sun Harvest, and Market Street. I think to give a little more perspective of what I buy and the budget implications that has, I'll also include on here my trips to the store and how much of each item I buy, and how much it ends up costing me. Judging by how much food I still have now as the week comes to a close, I did better on my last shopping trip than I originally thought. I thought that I had blown my budget of $100 for two weeks, when really, I think I have enough food to last me for the month. I'll detail it and put that in a separate post I think.

Well, as to how I cook, that's about all there is to it. It's really simple and straightforward, I don't know all the terms and certainly not all of the techniques. So, hopefully, these recipes are easy for you to follow!!

Experiment #1 - Shrimp & Scallop soup

This is a total stretch for me. I RARELY follow recipes or plan my meals out. I simply go by what is in my fridge, and what flavors I know work together... or flavors that I am curious of combining.

I don't go out and buy the finest ingredients or anything particularly difficult to find. I happen to be on a relatively tight budget, and out here in West Texas, we don't exactly have a ton of exotic marketplaces so it should be fairly easy for people to go and find exactly the items that I use in all of my cooking. I'll try to say where it is that I get my ingredients and hopefully eventually start adding pictures along with the posts so that it gets even easier to determine what it is exactly that I might be rambling about...

That being said, this is the first Flavor Experiment, Recipe Experiment, whatever you may want to call it...

This one is for a 3 Liter crockpot ( adjust amounts as necessary)

1 1/2 cups raw (i used the frozen, in a bag kind) baby scallops (100-200/lb.)
20 (give or take) large shrimp(40-60/lb) - I used cooked, tail-on, peeled, deveined

both can be found in the frozen seafood section in Walmart (like I said, nothing fancy, right?)

1/2 of a large purple eggplant cut in fairly large chunks
1 medium yellow onion diced
1 cup chopped celery
chopped cilantro leaves
chopped green onions
2 garlic cloves (minced)
2 carrots (sliced)
handful of asparagus spears (chopped)

chili powder
freshly ground black pepper
cayenne pepper
red chili pepper flakes

1 1/2 cups water
1 cup chicken broth


...

combine it all in the crockpot and let simmer until ready (you may want to salt to taste or add different spices, but my diet - the Paleo Diet - won't allow for very much salt at all)


And... that's it! This should feed me, single young woman that I am for at least 4 meals, though it's possible it could feed me more. Never made it, I have no clue. I'll comment with the success or failure, and how much it ends up feeding me