The Improvisation of Cooking

Since I started Everything Erica, people are always asking my what my end goal is and what my motivation was for starting a blog.

The truth is, my blog started out as a way to document my culinary adventures both in the kitchen and throughout Chicago, but it was slowly morphed into something that is much more than that. Through this medium, I’ve found myself in a position to inspire people, who have never cooked before, to get in the kitchen and start! I want to continue with this trend and hopefully continue to show you how cooking can truly be simple, fun and sincerely life changing if you allow it to be.

It’s important to note that you don’t have to have the freshest ingredients, the most expensive cookware or the best recipe to create a truly delicious dish. Cooking and getting a great meal on the table is all about improvisation and working with what you have available to you.

Given my thoughts on cooking, I thought I would share a little story for you to help inspire you to look around your pantry, and create something truly amazing with what you already have!

Last night, I invited my two girlfriends, Jessica and Tiffany over for a girls night. Jessica is the Co-Founder of Cheeky Chicago (if you haven’t checked it out, you must) and Tiffany is an inspirational Coach, Counselor & Beauty Advisor (you MUST follow her). Needless to say, I was among incredibly talented company, and  it was important for me to have a couple of dishes that could wow them.

BUT…there was one problem…

I didn’t have time to go to the grocery store! Instead of freaking out and ordering a pizza, I stopped, and looked at what I currently had.

First, I noticed I had a couple of avocados, tomatoes, limes and canned corn, so I threw together one of my favorite salads.

Then, I noticed I had an onion. I didn’t know what to do with it, but I figured I’d start caramelizing it and figure it out as I went. Halfway through cooking the onions, I noticed an apple that had been sitting in my fruit bowl for two weeks. I had tasted an apple/onion soup a few weeks ago and thought the two ingredients went well together. So, I sliced it up and threw it in with the onions and kept cooking away! Finally, I had to think of a way to serve it. I ended up just grabbing some crackers, topping it with the apple onion mixture and finishing it off with some goat cheese I had leftover from last week! It was super easy and I pretty much used all the ingredients I would have tossed out over the next couple days.

Finally, for my last dish, I opened my freezer and noticed I had tons of frozen fruit. I had peaches, mangos, blueberries and strawberries! I wanted to do a fruit salad, but I needed to add a savory element so I decided to mix the fruit in with some quinoa and nuts. I am totally sharing this recipe with you guys this week, because it was a hit!

When asked about my proudest moment over the last couple years, it is without a doubt when you, my loyal readers, post photos of your Everything Erica dishes and tell me about how incredible they tasted or how it got you cooking when you never thought you could.

Now that you’ve started cooking, let’s get you to start improvising! I challenge you to make dinner tonight (or sometime this week) using ONLY what you have in your house currently. Please share your dishes with the Everything Erica community by Hashtagging #ImproviseErica on Instagram, Facebook and/or Twitter.

I can’t wait to see what you’re going to make!

Love always,
Erica