After a long absence from the kitchen, I managed to throw a few ingredients together and make something that was – if I do say so myself – not bad at all.
The main problem I seemed to have was overcoming my fear of the oven. For some reason, I’m quite happy cooking with a wok or a couple of saucepans, but trying to use the oven has always made me uneasy.
There are two different ways of cooking, I think: rigidly following a recipe, or cooking “intuitively”. I recently realised that what I thought was successful, intuitive cooking was actually creating a range of different meals – each with different ingredients – that tasted about the same.
I’m now trying to revert to the “follow the recipe” school of cooking to see if I can try and learn a few more things before I try and cast everything on my intuition.
Part of the recipe that I had last night was so tasty, and so easy, that I thought it was worth reproducing here: it’s a recipe for “lemon garlic green beans”. I’m including the original recipe, and what really happened: and this is what it looks like when I’m following a recipe!
Steam 250g of green beans (microwave them as “two serves” of fresh vegetables), stir in 1tbsp of lemon juice (I used one of those squeeze bottles) and two teaspoons of crushed garlic (I used minced garlic). Continue stirring until everything has warmed through: serve immediately (I served 20 mins later after everything else was finished).