COVID-19 Virus, Day 128

I have a really comprehensive recipe list now after working on this for about a week. 
I'll preface this, however, with this statement. I have more recipes to look at. I haven't yet gone back and fit in ALL the recipes I actually have for each category below. And I havent incorporated the cookbooks on the shelves yet. 

But it's really cool.

Now I have recipes for meals with: 
Chicken, Beef, Pork, Fish, Seafood, as well as Vegetarian and Vegan. 

And I have the cuisines for each of these meal types including; 
American, Chinese, Ethiopian, French, Hungarian, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Lebanese, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Russian and Mexican. (I'm open to other cuisines but will need recipes please and thank you.)

And I have recipes for Spring, Summer, Winter, and Fall. 

So that ends up as one recipe for each day of the year, give or take, with no repeats. 

I didnt mean to start out that way, honestly. 
I meant to track the meals I made at home for 4 months (during the pandemic) so I could remind myself of the meals we had last week so we dont get sick of them by eating them too often. 

Then it turned into gathering evidence on my hypothesis that I had a lot of recipes and they probably spanned all cuisines and all food types. I was wrong. I had huge pockets missing. I tend to favor beef and Italian and fall/winter dishes. Think Lasagna. Yeaahhh. Comfort food. 

I did some research to fill in the gaps, and learned a lot already in the process. For example, I didn't think Ethiopian food included fish. It does! And also, Hungarian Paprikash can be made with nearly anything. 

Phase two will be to take the cookbook that I slung together of all the recipes I've gathered online and make sure that they are all represented in the recipe list, and categorized.  I bet it expands a bit. 

Phase three is to try all the recipes. I actually started this phase tonight, and made Sesame Chicken from scratch. Boy was that good! 



Once I've tried a recipe I have to be sure it's exactly what I want, or else change something and try again. 

Phase Four would be to match a dessert and side dish for every meal so you have balanced meals not just fried chicken and mashed potatoes. You know... veggies? Salads? Fruit? Bread?

Phase Five would be to format it into a cookbook that is easy to read and follow, with things like "cream the butter" explained. And maybe valid substitutions. And fixes. I'm sure I'm gonna mess up and my experiences should be recorded. 

I can foresee handing this down to my kids one day. But my current ambition is not to be bored by cooking. And to enjoy it, and learn new things. 

The kids don't seem all that interested in cooking right now. I do think they will be one day. 

Son just made Snickerdoodles this morning because he wanted a cookie. This was unprovoked by me. I had no idea until he started asking questions! 
He used the wrong leavening and he mixed the sugar cinnamon coating into the cookie, but they still turned out pretty good. 



Stay tuned, you'll get to hear first hand how this all goes down, as I'm sure you figured out. :)

Until then 
Stay safe, sane and healthy!
Vicky


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