![\"Ugly](\"http:\/\/i722.photobucket.com\/albums\/ww230\/mcolletterogers\/UglySoup-modified.jpg\" "\\"Ugly")
My vegetable soup started out the right way:\u00a0 Making a broth with chicken bones, then using it to cook some leftover broccoli stalks which got pureed in the blender.\u00a0 But then I decided to throw in a handful of rice to see how it cooks up in a lots of liquid instead of a carefully measured amount.\u00a0 Next came some of last autumn’s kale from the freezer.\u00a0 Things were looking very green, so I saut\u00e9ed and added some onion and then a few marinated sun-dried tomatoes.\u00a0 Finally, worried that the flavor was on the bland side, I dumped in Herbes de Provence.<\/p>\n
For once, I had to force myself to eat the resulting conglomeration.\u00a0 Despite integrating a little color, it was still an unappetizing shade of green.\u00a0 The taste was completely uneventful.\u00a0 Plus, the rice didn’t have time to cook through so it was raw-tasting.\u00a0 And then there was the far more serious crunch of chicken bones.\u00a0 Seems I did a halfway job straining my chicken broth and a few got into the blender (which explained the funny noise the blender had been making!)\u00a0 No surprise that I yearned for something more after forcing my way through a bowl of my Ugly Soup.\u00a0 Needless to say, the recipe doesn’t follow.<\/p>\n
So even after 40 years in the kitchen, disasters still happen.\u00a0 But as they say in the positive thinking business, mistakes are less important than the response.\u00a0 After a disaster, do you retreat into the welcoming arms of the processed foods industry (which thrives on making us feel incapable of feeding ourselves)?\u00a0 Or do you filter out the chicken bones and try again?<\/p>\n
If you are interested in transitioning to a healthy eating lifestyle, the second option is the only option.\u00a0 The reason is simple:\u00a0 We cannot maintain a healthy eating lifestyle without cooking our own meals from real foods.\u00a0 A diet of packaged and processed foods cannot yield good health unless chosen with extreme care and eaten with extreme discipline–something that is practically unattainable.<\/p>\n
Given that disasters cannot excuse us from the kitchen, what can we learn to help us get back in the saddle again?<\/p>\n
- \n
- For starters<\/strong>, always strain your chicken broth.<\/li>\n
- Avoid the last minute approach<\/strong>.\u00a0 Dashing flavors together in a hurry may be something TV chefs can do, but most of us benefit from a little time for deliberation.\u00a0 Or stick with a recipe created by someone who took time to figure out good flavorings.<\/li>\n
- Instead, think ahead<\/strong>.\u00a0 The think-ahead approach always delivers the best results–and takes the stress out of cooking.\u00a0 Had I thought ahead, I would have cooked the rice the night before when there was plenty of time for it to soften into a nice, fluffy thickener.<\/li>\n
- Herbs and spices<\/strong>, in particular, benefit from forethought.\u00a0 Dumping spices into a dish at the very end stunts their flavor potential miserably.<\/li>\n
- Mind the colors in a dish\u00a0<\/strong> We really do eat with our eyes as well as our stomachs.\u00a0 So even though I was full after eating my soup, my eyes were still hungry–and they are very close to the brain that sends me foraging for more food!<\/li>\n
- Finally:\u00a0 Join one of our cooking classes!\u00a0<\/strong> We love to share all the confidence-building tricks and tips, new recipes, new flavors and cooking basics that take the overwhelm out of healthful, everyday meal preparation.\u00a0 See how simple, easy cooking can be fun and engaging.\u00a0 Check out our schedule.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What Not to Do When Cooking Opportunities for humility are never in short supply.\u00a0 In a recent class, a participant brought up the perennial problem of cooking failures.\u00a0 My response began with the reassurance that cooking disasters don’t really happen that often, so don’t let them scare you from the kitchen.\u00a0\u00a0 Of course the very … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[123,132,293,380,603],"class_list":["post-1349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healthy-cooking-basics","category-uncategorized","tag-color","tag-cooking-disaster","tag-herbs-spices","tag-meal-planning","tag-ugly-soup","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cookhappylivehealthy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- Avoid the last minute approach<\/strong>.\u00a0 Dashing flavors together in a hurry may be something TV chefs can do, but most of us benefit from a little time for deliberation.\u00a0 Or stick with a recipe created by someone who took time to figure out good flavorings.<\/li>\n