Have you ever had a recipe from a mother or grandmother that included instructions like “some of this” and “a little of that”? I haven’t. Any recipe I have ever gotten from Mom includes exact amounts, plus detailed instructions for the procedure, cooking time, and even what kind of pan to use. There are few recipes handed down from Grandma MacAvoy, and these are also pretty specific about ingredients and directions.
Recipes from my daughters, on the other hand, are not so specific. My daughters often seem to just throw things together, and it usually works. When I was visiting Mavia in Portland recently she served a delicious beet salad, which I decided I would have to make when I got back home. Not having written anything down, I called her for the recipe. She told me what went into the dish, with no amounts of course. It’s a salad, so cups and tablespoons are not that important. Here are the ingredients-
Beets
Tomatoes
Feta Cheese
Fresh Mint
Arugula
Trim the beets, wrap them in foil, and roast them in the oven at 350 until you think they are done. Mine took about an hour, and were probably more well done than they should have been. Next time I won’t cook them as long.
*Hint from Mavia- Place the wrapped beets on a cooking sheet with sides when you put them in the oven. Otherwise you could end up with beet juice all over the bottom of your oven. Then it will start to smoke. Then your smoke alarm will go off and you will have to open all the doors and windows. (Guess how she knows this.)
When the beets are done peel them, cut them up, and place them in a nice salad bowl. Add chopped tomatoes (preferably heirloom, which I did not have), chopped mint, and crumbled feta cheese.
At this point I realized that something was missing. Shouldn’t there be some kind of dressing? I called my daughter. She told me to add some rice vinegar, which luckily I had in my pantry. Then it would have been just like the salad I’d had at her house, except that I had forgotten to get arugula.
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