Cooking To Call Your Own

Rediscovering simple ingredients - there is originality in seeing the old, familiar thing as something new.

There are boundless resources for cooking - literally, hundreds of cooking sites full of recipes at our fingertips. I use the internet all the time for cooking; I look up something I want to make and there are usually dozens of different recipes for what I want to make. Flavor combinations, ideas for cooking vegetables in different ways, ideas for cooking grains. Some sites offer recipes for the amount of servings you want, which, I liken to buying in the bulk section: you make what you want instead of a large batch of something with tons of leftovers - especially good for baking.

The inspirations are out there. You don't always have to follow the recipe because you may not have all of the ingredients, but, the thing is you can still make a wonderful dish with just a few of the flavors and ingredients a recipe calls for. Recipes can simply be a jumping off point and you can still make a wonderful dish from the inspiration.

Old recipe books, magazines, heirloom family recipes can all be inspiration to call your cooking your own. Collect your own: alter recipes and write them down. I tend to like to cook using only a few ingredients to keep it simple and I can taste the ingredients separately and together; where they enhance the flavors of one another yet keep their own flavor at the same time.

This is one of the simple, yet, empowering benefits of home cooking. Nothing old fashioned about cooking from scratch - just simple, straight forward cooking.