KEEP on trusting yourself in the kitchen

One of the themes that I hope emerges from these blogs is that I don't feel tied to recipes, and I don't want you too , either. If you let all of your sense be engaged - and remember, thinking is one of the senses in my book - then you will become a superb cook. That doesn't mean you will be a "chef," which is a title that is much overused, and in any event, is frequently disavowed by people who cook professionally. "Don't call me a chef. I'm a cook." Well, if you think about it for a minute, if you have a favorite restaurant, with a cook who makes food you love, and you're a cook too, you have something in common.

I am thinking of this today because after a whole lot of years I DO trust myself in the kitchen...MOST of the time. If I'm making something I'm familiar with, like soup, I can pretty much toss out a recipe, except for the outlines, and do something I like.

Last week I watched a television program on which they made Mexican tortilla soup, or what they CALLED Mexican tortilla soup. There was no tomato in it, and I remember that soup as being decidedly tomato based . Nonetheless, the recipe looked good. The cook poached chicken thighs in chicken stock and water, and let them cool. Then she reheated the stock with some jalapeno peppers to give it heat, put shredded chicken meat back in, and served it with some tortilla strips she had toasted herself.

A good soup. But I wanted something different. You could say (and you'd be right), that I didn't want to bother with having to find the tortilla strips when I served the soup, let alone storing them away from permanent damage from "i cinque gatti" . And my friend Nora had mentioned posole during the week. "Hmmm. Posole. Got some of that." Now, I have dried posole, and I have it in the cans. Making posole from dried is a rewarding, and incredibly time consuming process. So, this time, the cans would do. And I can't see chicken soup without thinking about vegetables. So I thought carrots. Had those on hand.

So I poached the chicken thighs, after I had pulled off the skin, in stock (when I saw the program she used 2/3 stock and 1/3 water. Can't understand why). Instead of cooking them forever, I brought the stock to a boil, and then let everything sit and cool down (I used eight thighs). When they were cool, I added two jalapenos, one whole, one cut in half and brought the stock back to the boil, as I chopped the carrots (one bunch) into coins. While they were cooking and I was shredding the chicken, I thought "WAIT. CABBAGE. I have some cabbage in the fridge." Indeed, I did have half a head of red cabbage. I shredded half of that half into thin slices and tossed it in with the carrots. Some bulk and some flavor, but I DO warn you: red cabbage bleeds, so we have a dark soup now. Then I put the chicken back in, opened two cans of posole and rinsed the corn , and put that in the soup as well. I tasted and since there was enough zip from the jalapenos, pulled them out.

I got well over 3 quarts of soup from this. And the reaction from the farmers I fed was very, very positive. And I tasted it too.

DAMN , it's good.

So, how should you play with this, instead of following me? Here are some suggestions: use rice, instead of posole, or sweet corn (frozen corn is just fine), or use some other left over cooked grains you have. Don't have chicken stock in the house ?(BAD BOY or GIRL) Water will do if it must. No cabbage? Leave it out. Or use green cabbage. No carrots? Use celery. Don't like vegetables? Don't use any. Jalapenos too hot for you ? How about those Anaheim chilis that you can get in a can? Like it hotter? Use serranos or habaneros, but be careful.

See? There's lots you can do with this. For example, I'm thinking now that I could substitute the chicken with some pork of some kind, and use mushrooms and keep the posole, and maybe put in some spinach .

So come on folks! As the much missed Richard Sax one wrote 'GET IN THERE AND COOK" And let me know how it turns out. I really wanna steal the recipes