“What’s Inside Your Recipe Box?”

by Little Miss Attila on January 31, 2010

Mmmmm. Casseroles.

That might be the next frontier, after soups and stews. Though I’d hate to go back to using recipes; I’ve been enjoying the “free form” approach to cooking lately.

Regarding the entry’s discussion of green bell pepper, and whether it was originally used in the casserole from the author’s girlhood, I’ll bet it was skipped as often as not. Green bell pepper has a very distinctive taste, and can easily take over a dish that doesn’t have some other assertive flavors of its own—for instance, a slightly spicy spaghetti sauce.

I’ll bet for this recipe the solution is either some actual cooked tomato, to supplement the sauce, or some red or orange bell peppers: those are a bit milder. The only hitch there is that they can be more costly than the green ones (red ones are a bit more expensive, and orange ones start at that high level, and will sometimes go through the roof). So at first blush it sounds too costly to pay that extra dollar or more for the milder bell pepper—but keep in mind that a casserole may bring put 4-6 servings of high protein food onto the table, so that dollar must be amortized over the appropriate number of people, or of meals.

Wait . . . that was boring, wasn’t it?

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February 2, 2010 at 5:12 pm

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Charlie Martin January 31, 2010 at 7:07 pm

White sauce. That’s the key.

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Ric Locke January 31, 2010 at 7:50 pm

I either like or can tolerate most other peppers, but bell peppers make me gag. It’s a physical reflex, and the color doesn’t matter. Usually I can choke it down, but finding bell pepper in anything always disappoints at minimum.

Recipes are for wimps. I know what I want, I know what I have, and mapping between A and B is fun. This is especially true of stews, soups, casseroles, and similar highly-mixed foods.

Regards,
Ric

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