Cooking Lessons

I have been working on cooking a greater variety of food. I received an air fryer for Christmas, so I'm having fun with that. I also get a box of produce delivered once a week, and there are sometimes things I'm not as familiar with or that I've never cooked with (tomatillos, persimmons, squash). 

I've learned some things along the way:

Butternut squash is very good in soup. I don't generally like squash (it's a texture thing), but I like it cubed in soup. I may try roasting it and then blending it to make soup.

The carrot soup is good. I used a pile of carrots, a handful of tomatillos, half an onion, and a small red pepper, all cooked and blended together. It likely did not need the ginger, as the other spices would have been enough. It's a bit spicy, but not too bad.

Pretty much any vegetable can be turned into a stir fry if you try hard enough. I made an eggplant and choy mue stir fry with some pork strips that I had cooked in the air fryer and a couple packs of udon noodles. It was a pretty good stir fry.

Pretty much any fruit can become baked oatmeal. So far, I've made blueberry/apple, blueberry/banana, blueberry/rhubarb, plain blueberry, plain apple, and plain pear baked oatmeal. I haven't tried blueberry/pear yet.

Most leftover veggies can be made into soup. Some can be added to scrambled eggs or used to make an omelet. Other's can join a barley bowl or pasta sauce.

Most fruit makes a good smoothie. My basic "recipe" is milk, some sort of frozen fruit (or fresh, in the case of the persimmons and sometimes apples), and a frozen banana. I often add some combination of peanut butter powder, yogurt, and spinach. I might add some honey or maple syrup if I think it needs to be sweeter.

Having a mix of fruits and veggies has forced me to be creative and search out new recipes. I'm enjoying learning about new ways to cook things and trying new flavours.