Something to know before the holiday cooking season begins (part one)
Modifying a recipe may be the recipe you need
As a seasoned at-home chef, even I get annoyed by the laundry list of ingredients that complicates recipes.
Things like psyllium husk, preserved lemons, orange blossom water, and millet flour sure are fun to spice things up. But let’s get real: I don’t keep too many unusual items in my kitchen, and I cook a lot. Do you?
Swiping past recipes with too many ingredients can make us feel like we’re missing out on a culinary adventure or trying something new. Which is why I think it’s essential for everyone, even those who don’t cook often, to know how to modify a recipe according to what they have at home.
I most recently did this with a recipe from Dr. Mark Hyman, Quinoa Yam Risotto.
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Side note: If you’re not subscribed to Dr. Hyman’s newsletter, I highly recommend it! This dish is a fabulous replacement for Thanksgiving’s classic mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows. And I bet he’ll send more holiday-inspired recipes in the coming weeks.
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The ingredients list isn’t even that complicated, but I wasn’t going to go to the grocery store to buy more after spending heaps on groceries that week already. Here it is:
This sounded delicious, but I didn’t have everything, and I needed something to make THAT NIGHT. So, I substituted:
Grass-fed ghee with olive oil
Yams with sweet potatoes
Quinoa with white rice
Shallot with onion
Fresh sage leaves with dry, ground sage
No goat cheese
I followed the same method but kept an eye on it. I thought maybe I’d need more liquid to account for the grain substitution, or maybe I’d need some more flavor with the fresh-to-dry sage substitution. Turns out, it was one of the most delicious things I’d made in weeks!
When you break it down, here’s what the recipe consists of:
The base flavor: A healthy fat (ghee, butter, or oil) plus onion and garlic
The main: A vegetable (yams or sweet potatoes, mushrooms)
The bulk: A grain (quinoa or rice)
The top flavor: A spice (sage)
The liquid: Broth and coconut milk
And if you think about it, these are all staples you can pick up at the grocery store and have stocked on hand.
Empower yourself to make something your own. Simplifying things can eliminate stress, especially when we’ll be spending lots of time in the kitchen with the upcoming holidays.
Cooking is, after all, an experiment. And if something tastes bad, you can always try adding salt or hot sauce, and you’ll learn something.
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Wishing you well, and I’ll see you here again real soon. Click here to read part two of Something to know before the holiday cooking season begins.
