Notes from the Kitchen: Missing Ingredient

Honeymoon Suite-The Missing Ingredient

Every recipe, no matter how often you’ve made it or how simple, can present a learning experience. Or a reminder of previous learning experiences.

I’ve been making Hamburger Soup a couple times a year for a decade. Nearly every ingredient is something I keep on hand. So when I went to the store spontaneously last Monday to get some stuff to cook I thought: “I’ll make Hamburger soup! I have nearly everything I need for that at home. I only need to get burger.”

Now, as I said yesterday I was being lazy and I haven’t cooked a damn thing all week. So last night at 10:30 PM I finally got up enough gumption to get out there and cook. I decided that it would take too long to make lasagna (at least 2 hours) and definitely too much time to make beef stew (4 hours) so again my mind settled on Hamburger Soup. It is simple and fast -at less than an hour to make with all the food prep thrown in.

I chopped up my onion and threw in some minced garlic with some oil and sautéed until translucent. Added the ground beef and cooked until nearly all the pink was gone. Then I added the frozen peas. I was on a roll. Everything was going smoothly.

I was also testing out the second hand camera I had been given and it was working well despite the warnings I had been given about its finicky nature.

I went to the cupboard to retrieve the next ingredient and found to my dismay that I didn’t have any cream soup. None. How could this be? Of course, the answer is easy. I scrimp when I go to the store and some staples – even cheap ones – just don’t get bought when they are used up. I also frequently go to the grocery store on the bus. You just don’t want to buy anything extra when you have to haul them on the bus when you are done shopping.

So…Pop Quiz! What do you do when you are missing an ingredient needed to finish a meal? There are lots of answers.

1.) Substitute. What could I substitute for cream soup? Gravy would work and I could easily make some. Just be sure you know what to substitute with or you can end up with lumpy purple fondue like Mary did once ("Gruyère and gorgonzola both start with the same letter of the alphabet I bet I can substitute one for the other").

2.) Go and get the missing ingredient either from the store or ask the neighbors. I frequently do this one. Hell…I even borrowed the downstairs neighbor’s oven once.

3.) Stop cooking. You can nearly always stop cooking. I can’t actually think of an example when you can’t stop cooking because of the food. Obviously…if you need to have dinner on the table in the next 20 minutes or you will be horribly murdered- not cooking would not be recommended. I would recommend option 1 in that instance.

In my experience last night at quarter to 11:00 I decided that I should just stop. I put a lid on the whole business and tossed it in the fridge.

So...What was the learning experience that this little cooking drama presented? Always check all your ingredients before you start cooking, and preferable before you go to the store.

And how goes the diet?

Today’s food – Poor.

I had a sausage patty and some very mushy hash browns from the Student Union for breakfast.

Lunch was leftover Chinese from Asian Kitchen – and as usual they gave way more food than even 2 meals worth but I ate it all in 2 meals.

Dinner? I have not had any - it’s 2:30 in the afternoon. I expect I’ll be having a bowl of Hamburger soup after I stop at the store on the way home and get the missing cream soup.

Exercise? I expect to get at least 30 minutes at the Nat.