Simple Food

I am getting to be such a good cook! I can cook a half dozen dishes now, providing they are simple. ;-) Honestly, I’ve never been good at cooking. But I’m getting better.

I cook great spinach. The great thing about my spinach is when I’m done with it, it doesn’t taste like spinach at all! That’s good for me because I don’t like spinach. I like turnip greens; I like collard greens; I like kale. Spinach – not so much. I do prepare spinach and eat it, but I combine it with extra virgin olive oil, onions, Worcestershire, soy sauce, Texas Pete and red pepper flakes. When I get through with it, it tastes really good, not at all like the stuff God makes.

My stir-fries are pretty good, too. There are many stir-fry recipes, but lately I’ve been using yellow squash, onion, red and green bell peppers, and again with the sauces: Worcestershire, soy, Texas Pete, red pepper flakes … plus beef or chicken strips.

Sometimes I prepare both: a stir fry and special spinach. I just wilt the spinach in the juice that remains from the stir-fry. I recommend these recipes for people who don’t know how to cook. They’re really easy and very tasty. All you need is a wok. I use an electric wok with a non-stick coating and a wooden spoon for stirring, but if I had a gas stove I’d use a regular wok.

I love Spanish rice – also called Mexican rice – though I don’t cook it anymore because I’m on a low-carb diet. Rice, bacon, tomatoes, onion, bell pepper, and cheese add up to out-of-this-world goodness. Spanish rice is very easy to make.

The first dish I learned to cook was the famous green bean casserole. The recipe was invented by Dorcas Reilly while working in the home economics department of the Campbell soup company. The original recipe card is in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio. I learned to cook it in Burlington, North Carolina, from my downstairs neighbor Dawn.

There are many variations on the original recipe. It’s really more of a side dish, and people cook it mostly at Thanksgiving. I haven’t tasted a green bean casserole for years so I made one today. Maybe the taste will “take me back” to those days.

I marinated the green beans in chicken broth while the oven was heating. I added milk, soy sauce, and freshly ground black pepper to the condensed cream of mushroom soup. I also added a 4 oz. can of mushrooms to the green beans. To make a more complete meal, I spooned the casserole over grilled chicken breast strips. It worked out well.

Besides simple stir-fries and casseroles, the third thing that anyone can make, even if they can’t cook, is a salad. There are all kinds of salads, and if you have a knife and a cutting board and the ability to chop up a vegetable, you can make a salad. Lately I’ve been making chili salads. I make simple chili salads with hearts of romaine, warm beef-and-bean chili, hot sauce, red pepper flakes, grated cheese, and sour cream. There are many recipes for chili salad including vegetarian and vegan recipes.

Bon appétit!