Creativity Can't Stay Down: Picante Strawberry Salsa

My new year's resolution was to give up cooking. Seriously. I try to learn too much new stuff on my own. (Jewelry making, marketing, Hebrew, etc.) Plus, theoretically, I'm writing a book. Then there's My Quest for Meaning, which is, I admit, a major drain on productivity. (See: Woman of the Verge of a Mystic Breakdown.)

Oh, and the two kids. MY PLATE IS TOO DAMN FULL.

There is only so much change a human can accomodate in a short period. All change is stressful. Admittedly, not all stress is bad. But, consider, you too are human. Blah blah blah. Routine! That's the secret to success, no matter what motivational books might say. Establish routines, and stick to them. Have a bedtime routine. A morning routine. A laundry routine.

Because it's the only path left for me to try, I embark on a quest for normalcy and routinization. And so, cooking or creativity in the kitchen must go. It's too hard for me to follow recipes, or even remember more than one step at a time. Know thyself. Recognize thy kyptonite.

Keep it Simple Stupid/Students/Sonny. First, I tell myself, organize no-cook meals for the kids. My teenage son creates a two-week meal schedule. I sign up for regular time to get deliveries of groceries from Fresh Direct. I set up Google Calendar. Baby steps. I starting looking at my Google Calendar daily. (This month's goal: try to look at calendar on weekends too. Sigh.)

But, normalcy is practically impossible. I don't stick to the approved menus and shopping lists. In fact, most of the time, I don't even carry shopping lists with me. I do impromptu stops at stores because they were "on the way."

Ah, attention deficit disorder: I don't know if I "really" have you, but, if the symptoms and remedies match up, does it really matter? A distraction by any other name would pull me away just as fiercely...

Strawberry Salsa

I buy too much Fresh Direct hot salsa. It was on sale. I know I shouldn't succumb to buy 2 & save gimmicks. Rationally, I know. "Where are the Nachos?" my husband asks. Who thought of nachos?

I buy too many strawberries, which I bought on impulse Saturday along with other fruits and vegetables. They looked so good. My son asked for strawberries. My small child requested we stop the car now! and buy a healthy snack from a Manhattan vendor. Am I to stay on schedule and say NO? So we circled and circled city blocks until mommy gave up and double-parked.

So, I scan the refrigerator. Too much hot salsa and too many strawberries. Eureka! Add the chopped sweet one-day-before-rot strawberries to Fresh Direct hot salsa. Serve on Sweet Potatoes chips.

I'm back. The Whatever Cook. Though probably not so much with the "cooking." Creative food things for people with short attention spans.

Comfort Soups

Each September as school begins, the boys bring home new things. Alas, they keep sneaking in viruses & boorish bacteria.

So, for the last month, I've been battling these creative, ever-mutating mico-demons & my only culinary interest has been SOUPS, the more comforting the better. And the Grandmother of all comfort soups is Chicken.

My mom makes canja; her secret is dark meat, particularly chicken legs. I was a terribly picky eater, and her chicken soup is one of the (very) few things I have eaten consistently since I was a child. And pretty much every time I come for a visit, she has chicken soup cooking for me.

Simply, comfort foods are foods your mom made to make you happy & foods you wished your mom had made to make you happy. Many are savory, i.e., brothy because water, salt, and that slight starchiness appeal to our primal nutrition needs.

Traditionally, the secret to canja, Portuguese chicken soup, is lemon peel & mint. Lemons belong in every medicine cabinet, aka, refrigerator. (Another key Portuguese comfort item is lemon tea, made to cure vast numbers of discomforts & illnesses.)

My Go-To cook book for all things Portuguese is "The Food of Portugal" by Jean Anderson. She has the classics: Green Soup, caldo verde, made with potato puree, chorico & collard or turnip greens; canja; vegetable; stone or empty-the-fridge & panty soup; fish stew/chowders; dry bread-rich acordas; & gazpacho.

Another go-to book is Jaime Oliver's Jaime's Dinners. The "Naked Chef" has a nice consomme, which I modified by adding a chunk of ginger during simmering. It's a great book that includes "Five Minute Wonders" & Sarnies (Sandwiches in American)-- which is my kind of cooking, particularly when colds & flu get me down & getting out of bed is work enough. He has lots of English-isms, like fish & chips & mushy peas. The former sounds great. The later, not so much. He also has a recipe for "Scrumptious Spanish Chickpea & Chorizo Soup." Anybody who uses chorizo, spicy paprika-red sausage, knows about flavor.

My friend Mira also hooked me up with a great site, which has soups from all over & creative ones, such as crema de guacamole, as well as "a good soup for the sick," a "miraculously delicious soup" made w/ beans, water, garlic, shallots, chiles. Medicinal classics.

"Total active prep time was under five minutes, the rest is just waiting and anticipating." FIVE MINUTES! OK, it would probably take me 15 minutes, given my current skill level, but I'll be trying that one soon.