You mean you've never just started with a bunch of items on hand and put them together without a recipe or an exact notion of what you're going to do? That's not adapting a recipe, that's invention. At least, to me it is. It may be that where I see innovation, you see variation on a theme.

I see the influences of trade and technology as allowing for something new, not just adapting old items. I'm not talking about replacing margarine for butter (something I would never do, cook with margarine, that is), but rather the fact that we microwave, blend, food process, etc.... We prepare and preserve foods today in ways that are different than they were 25 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago. Chefs also come up with new ways to get the most flavor or performance out of foods using new techniques. For example, in the time of Julia Child and the classical French chefs, everything was done with butter based sauces. Now, because of an interest in health and fresh taste, many chefs use reduction sauces. That's more than a variation on an old theme, in my opinion. Also, when you consider what some chefs do with sugar, foams, and sauces, it's art, it's innovative, and it's mind-blowing. They look at food in a way the rest of us have never dreamt of. For example, this by De Godevaart.

Foods from other locals were known to the people where they came from, but to combine ingredients from one local to another is new. Also, to apply the concepts of one culture of cooking to the ingredients from another culture creates a new product, at least from my perspective.

What did you stuff the tomatoes with?

Sesame/Garlic Couscous, mushrooms, green onions and the leftover bits of tomato. I topped it with "italian blend" cheese. The tomato shell itself could have used more salt, but other than that it was pretty damn tasty. I've made stuffed peppers a million times before, (the ones that are just essentially a homestyle meatloaf & rice on the inside), but never stuffed tomatoes, and I was so paranoid about squishing them or poking a hole in them when I scooped out the guts.

It was about half vegetable half couscous on the inside, and I ended up having way too much to fit in just four tomatoes, so I just had the rest as a side dish and ended up making a cucumber salad with fresh basil, lemon juice, olive oit and a teeny bit of basil/romano whatever dressing. Also toasted some french bread in the broiler with the tomatoes and chicken at the last second.

Apparently I'm going to make some mystery meat on Sunday. My mom called and told me she bought some ribs. They come preseasoned, she doesn't know with what, and she doesn't know what animal they came from. Judging by the size, I'm guessing pork. Dunno if I'm ready to tackle that.

I'm feeling a bit uninspired atm I'm afraid. But it's the weekend. I like cooking at the weekend. I did make a mushroom sauce for pasta last night:

olive oil in pan
slice up some spring onions (I think you call them green onions in America) and garlic
add mushrooms (Portabello or flat in my case)
cook for a bit
add wine - gloop
cook a bit more to reduce the wine
add soured cream before serving

Quite nice. I like adding mustard seeds with cream sauces and mushrooms. Works quite well. I didn't last night because I'm out.

No, it's not invention because you don't invent things like bread or chocolate. You just cook according to the cooking principles you've become accustomed to and mix flavours that will please your taste buds.

Ah right - so when I write music or improvise, I'm not inventing anything or being creative, I'm just playing according to the musical principles I've become accustomed to and am mixing chords and sounds which will please my ears.* Thanks for clearing that up.

(* which, of course, is true, but I always thought there was something more to it. I wonder what that could be?)
BTW - bread and chocolate in this instance will be ingredients rather than meals, which is kind of what we're talking about.

Thanks for sharing, paksetti and maxon.

I like the stuffing ingredients list for the tomatoes. I don't typically stuff veggies, but I'd like to try that sometime, especially since I'm a fan of couscous. I think I once tried a crabmeat/avacado combo that was inside of fresh tomatoes. That was decent, but I haven't tried it in years. Good luck with the mystery meat. If there's bones, at least you know it isn't pink slime.

Pasta supper with mushroom sauce sounds delightful, maxon. What's not to love when there's wine and mushrooms in something? Sour cream added guarantees a hit. I would not have thought of adding mustard seeds to that. I use mustard seeds in curries but it looks like I need to expand my use of them.

Bread and chocolate are no different from any other fancy meal. There's hundreds of receipes for bread and for chocolate, the receipes differ, but they are still called bread and chocolate, which brings us to the initial argument, that receipes are actually just adaptations.

This has been an interesting topic. Thank you for clarifying your position. I try to keep open to others' ways of conceptualizing and I believe I can see your point; no one has recently invented anything like bread or ice cream, for example (that I know of). I would venture, however, that the ideas you put forth for what constitutes invention when it comes to cooking are not widely or commonly held. I've always heard it referred to as "inventing" a recipe when one comes up with all of the ingredients, when one fashions a food without the benefit of an existing recipe, or when one so heavily modifies a recipe by amounts, methods, or the serious substitution and addition of ingredients so that the original recipe is no longer present or recognizable. Adaptions or modifications are the results of substituting a couple of ingredients. I can't decide if this has become a discussion of semantics or concepts. It's probably both.

I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that, while this has been an interesting discussion, at times it felt more like a debate and this is not a debate thread. Further, we've been straying from the topic which has to do with what we are cooking now, what we like to cook, and how we do all of that.

Let's get back to our regularly scheduled program. Thanks.

The mustard seeds add a nice bite - I use the black ones (did I say that?). For me they go particularly well with the creamy sauce. I love pepper and mushrooms too - I obviously like a kick with my mushroom. Black pepper, freshly ground with mushrooms is probably my favourite thing of all. Oh and garlic. You have to have garlic. My husband makes a really good mushroom omelette with garlic. ... ... now I want that for breakfast. NO EGGS!! Curses!

I bought a butternut squash this afternoon. I'm eying it up and thinking. Definitely roasted but what with?

You mean for a side or for seasoning? There are so many choices, it depends on what you want and how much time you're willing to spend. I always like butternut squash paired with black beans or kale. It also makes a delicious creamed soup after it's been roasted.

I'm glad you said black mustard - I'm pretty sure that's the same mustard that goes in curries too.

Damocles - share! Anything with chocolate has my attention. Lucky girlfriend.

I just finished up the last of my vegetarian pot pie - so very tasty. It's made with seasoned tofu strips in a gravy made from butter, flour, milk, and vegetable stock in the pan that was just used to sautee onions, carrots, and celery in olive oil. Frozen peas are stirred in and the filling is seasoned heavily with thyme and lightly with pepper. I use a frozen puff pastry crust, although phyllo dough makes a good crust too.

Frozen puff pasty is one of the greatest inventions of man. Saves sooooooooooooooooo much time. Pie sounds good. I'll try your gravy. A friend of mine made me a vegetarian gravy once which was delicious - d.e.l.i.c.i.o.u.s. When I asked her how, she said, infuriatingly, 'oh, I it's nothing really - simple.' <grinds teeth> I am usually able to recreate tastes fairly accurately (good sense of smell which is why I like cooking) but I have never been able to remake that, though god knows I've tried. I've been searching for a really good vegetarian gravy recipe for years. It would go nicely with my nut roast.

The gravy works in the pot pie, but probably because of the celery and onion. By itself, I always think it needs something. The gravy alone is this: melt 3 Tablespoons butter and make a roux with 2 T flour (I use white whole wheat) and 4 T corn starch. Add 1 cup of milk, a little at a time until mixed. Ad 1 3/4 cup broth. Season to taste (lots of thyme!).

Nut roast?

Ah, American measures but, yes, I get it, a roux sauce basically. We tend not to use corn starch though we can get it. You can use cornflour which I would guess is similar and is something I use for thickening too.

Nut roast - don't you get it there? Well, it's a roast - made of nuts. A lot of people just do nuts (ground up, not too fine) and breadcrumbs bound together with egg but I find it boring that way. I like to add onions, tomatoes and mushrooms with lots of herbs (marjoram and thyme usually but it can vary). Maybe leeks also if I have them or anything you fancy - courgettes are nice too. This column can give you the sort of accepted ideas about it but mine is nicer than any of those. In fact, you might find me in the comments section saying 'you fail' if you look hard enough.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandst...rfect-nut-roast
Basically it's a traditional stuffing that's made it to being the main event instead of chicken, turkey or ham. I do serve it with the traditional sage and onion stuffing or even something like apricot and chestnut stuffing if I really want to go mad.

Wow! Thanks for the link. No, we don't have this here, that I know of, although there are the occasional specialty stores that are starting to make the scene that have a lot of vegetarian and vegan items. This looks like a big improvement over tofu loaf at Thanksgiving. I love the idea of a stuffing with apricots.

Funny that you mentioned "American measurements". I couldn't remember if the British used the same measurements as the rest of Europe or if they had stuck to the older ones. I often measure with the spoons out of my utensil drawer, for example. The measurements don't have to be exact anyway; it's not cake.

I'm not overly excited about cornstarch, but it works. The recipe was adapted from a chicken pot pie recipe for those with gluten allergies and calls for rice flour and no crust.

Thanks again.

While were sharing, I found another way to cook kale that I enjoyed: Sautee sliced onions in a little olive oil, add handfuls of chopped fresh kale and sautee until softenend, add a sprinkling of dried cranberries (it's ok if they are sweetened). Serve with fresh ground pepper. The cranberry offsets the kale beautifully.

Last edited by VerDeTerre : 30th Mar 2012 at 09:03 PM.

OK - didn't know Americans don't do nut roast. Just a quick guide if you like - you can change most parts of it to suit yourself.

Fry onions - I use olive oil
Once they're starting to go translucent, add any veg you want. Typically I add sliced courgettes (zucchini?); mushrooms and tomatoes. I used to add a can of tomatoes but I prefer fresh. Cook for a bit more. Add any herbs you like. I generally use garlic, marjoram and thyme. You might not like the marjoram, it's a personal favourite of mine. Season with salt and pepper to taste (personally, I avoid the salt at this stage).

In the meantime, grind (not too fine, you want textures here) a whole batch of mixed nuts - doesn't matter much but I think it's better mixed rather than one sort. I don't like peanuts which a lot of recipes use (they're not nuts really anyway) and I don't think cashews work in large quantities. I generally use brazils, hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts and sometimes chestnuts (the sorts of nuts traditionally available in the UK) but you could add anything else you like.

Put nuts in a bowl. Add an egg (or two if you prefer). Mix in the veg. It should be a sort of paste texture - not too wet but not too dry either. It should stick together. If the eggs don't bind the whole thing, you can add a little stock. Then you need to bake it for about 40 minutes. I sometimes wrap it in pastry but usually put it in a casserole dish or lined bread tin. Sometimes I will make a sage and onion stuffing and put that in the middle of the nut roast to bake. You can do what you like with it. Goes wonderfully with traditional Christmas veg - roast 'taters, parsnips baked as fat chips in the oven in butter, brocolli (not sprouts, I hate sprouts), honey roast shallots (honey and butter) - ok maybe not traditional but delicious anyway. The chestnut and apricot stuffing is very nice with it.

The even better thing is it makes brilliant sandwiches when it's cold with brown bread and butter - one of my favourite things. mmmmmmm

On another note: I don't think we ever used the cup measurements or at least not for a long time. I did learn to cook using spoon measurements but it was related to lbs and ounces. We use metric now, of course.

It all sounds like a wonderful feast. My boyfriend throws a veggie Thanksgiving every year after Thanksgiving for his friends. The feature is a stuffed hubbard with a chestnut, mushroom, and crouton stuffing. It's a fun tradition and there are some great dishes that show up. I don't think I'd try the nut roast for that because the crowd is big and I think I'd want to save that for a family meal, but I could see adding the sides you mentioned as they would compliment the feast beautifully.

I got confused about which metric measurements were used and which weren't. Don't the British still use yards, feet, and inches? Also, hasn't England kept their old currency instead of changing over to the euro?

It seemed logical to me that cups and spoons would have been systems of cooking measurement that came to the states with the first British settlers. I looked it up and found this at King Arthur Flour website :

No, we use centimetres and kilometres, litres and (kilo)grammes now. People my age still struggle with it but younger people don't. The packaging in supermarkets has all gone over to metric though you can still see pounds and ounces in markets. Some things are still sticking around (like miles on the roads) but the conversion is well underway. Good thing too in the longer term, I think. The metric system is easier to use. We did keep the £ though.

Ok, so only the money has stayed the same.

It makes sense to adopt the metric system. As you pointed out, it's easier to use, if you're used to it. It also makes communication and trade between nations who adopt it easier. I see the advantages and want them on the one hand. On the other hand, I am sad to see the names of measurements, with their quirky origins, disappear. The inch was the distance between someone's knuckle and nail tip on the thumb. In French, it is "pouce" which is the thumb. The French no longer use that, it's all cm's now. The foot was the king's foot, the yard the distance between his nose and the length of his arm if stretched out. There are glasses for beer that can be a "yard". I find all of this very charming and wish it didn't have to get lost.

Oh well. The world keeps changing.

Ah! I discovered that okra, sauteed in olive oil, is delicious when mixed with a little fresh tomato sauce.

Yes, delicious in curries too. And in various other ways. Tonight: baked aubergine (eggplant) with chermoula, mint, coriander and bulgar wheat salad and what Him Indoors calls bike tyre cheese (halloumi). Yum, yum, yum. It'll be ready in 10 minutes.

I made a cold rice salad that's sort of like a modified waldorf, except nothing like that.

2c Jasmine rice
1 diced fuji apple
handfull of golden raisins, chopped
1 diced cucumber
a cup(ish) sweet corn
2 strips of bacon, chopped
diced sharp cheddar
mayonnaise and salad vinegar for the dressing
a pinch of salt and cinnamon.
Served on a red-tip lettuce leaf because I'm fucking classy as shit. I got the idea because I saw a bag of corn in the freezer. pfff. and I was about to eat a frozen burrito.

Also, did anyone make anything good for Easter? I made a rootbeer glazed pork roast, homemade scalloped potatoes au gratin, homemade biscuits, ginger carrots, fresh salad, deviled eggs and homemade blueberry pie for dessert. Fuckin holiday meals, man. Everything has to be big and homemade.

Your Easter feast sounds wonderful. I didn't celebrate Easter or Passover this year, although we're lightly entertaining the idea of having a Seder this weekend, but since we haven't planned for it, I have my doubts. In past years, my favorite dish was a baked combination of layered spinach, cheese, egg, and matzoh.

I've been in a bean soup mood. I made white beans and kale soup and it was delicious. Then I made red beans and rice and it lacked something. I think I needed to throw in more carrots and celery than I did (yes, I know it's not overly traditional to do it that way, but it's a vegetarian adaption to begin with).

Hard-boiled eggs, nutella out of the jar, and fail!sausage that burnt on me. Yep. I fail at cooking.