Freestyle Cooking

Cooking, creating recipes and even sometimes eating out takes confidence. You have to trust your instincts on timing, what tastes good and what elements will come together for the perfect bite.

That's why when my friend and former co-worker Tina used the term 'freestyle cooking' I knew it was gold. Freestyle cooking, just like freestyle rapping is thinking quick on the spot, surveying your surroundings and using whatever in reach to produce a successful, creative outcome.

Dinner tonight was a great example of freestyle cooking.

I was making pasta and only had plain canned sauce. So I poked around the fridge and pantry to see what I could add to it. I found a can of sliced mushrooms, a green pepper, some jarred garlic, white onion and parmigiana cheese.

Knowing what tastes I liked together, I pulled everything out, placed it on the butchers block and stared for a minute and devised a plan.

I took all the 'hard ingredients': onion, green pepper and mushrooms (all chopped small first) and added them to the pot with some oil and started to sauté them. Which makes sense to turn hard ingredients into soft for a sauce, right?

Then once the onions were translucent and the pepper looks a little brown, but not burnt, I added the can of sauce, garlic and parmigiana cheese and brought everything to a boil and was done.

It was super easy and was made up on the spot from whatever was in the fridge and all it took was some basic common sense.

YOU can totally do this, too!

Following recipes are great, and I encourage everyone to try the ones I post here, but the secret to being a good cook is having confidence and improvising.

Try to freestyle cook a meal with whatevers in the house. Email me at cookingwhatevs@gmail.com and let me know how it went. Good luck.