Cookbooks

I own cookbooks. One is a collection of old New England recipes that evokes hardy settlers gathered around an oak table, shoveling steel cut oats across the threshold of tremendous beards. Snow quietly blankets the old growth forests outside. A lean, vigilant dog inhabits the corner. People are wearing bonnets.  I once made some al forno vegetables out of this book which came out flavorful, and looking like swamp.

Another of my cookbooks contains all garlic recipes.  It is so exciting keeping a book of exclusively garlic recipes on my shelf that actually making any of the dishes seems superfluous.

Nearly 100% of my escapades in the kitchen are sherpa-less jaunts up the mountain.   I know people become good cooks by practicing established techniques, but I can't resist being a witch in the kitchen.  "I wonder what would happen if I paired this wine with burrito!" etc.

Anyway, sometimes I get lucky in my mad dash of spices, like I did with this Spanish or Mexican rice dish:

Start with a dry cup of brown basmati rice.  I cooked mine in a rice cooker, and it swelled like a blow-up mattress enough to feed a family of four.

In a big pan, saute:

1 diced red bell pepper

1 small yellow onion, 

1/2 can of sweet corn

1 dollop tomato paste and some water to help it dissolve

1 swirl of agave syrup

1 dash of cayenne pepper

1 swoosh of rice vinegar

salt and peper

Stir in the rice and eat.  At work they serve a rice in red sauce using a sand castle presentation.  Flan-like.  It was my inspiration.