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I had been meaning to make some egg noodles and use the hamburger in the fridge to make some beef stroganoff. I hadn’t yet bothered to go to the store to replace the flour I used up cooking for Christmas Eve dinner, so I decided to improvise before the beef went bad. Here is what I came up with:
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This is the first of what I expect to be many experiments. I haven’t fleshed this out to an exact recipe and will probably modify it as I repeat the same dish.

I wanted to make some type of baked Penne dish today. I started the pasta cooking a little earlier than I should, but they hydrated back up while baking. I decided to go with a white sauce and use mushrooms and broccoli. So here we go:
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The first step of fixing any problem is to admit it. I have a cooking problem. Me cooking, itself isn’t a problem. I have a problem following recipes. This is something I learned from my Mom. To make a dish, you need to look at a half dozen recipes on the subject, then go in the kitchen and cook.

My sister, Ruth, is the exact opposite. She prefers the nice guide of a recipe. Some of Mom’s recipes that I will post on this site were translated by Ruth from watching Mom make them. I’ve often told my Mom that she needs to keep a kitchen lab book. There are times that a dish is just superb. We enjoy it, because we know there is no chance of recreating it. Even Mom didn’t know exactly what she did.

I am going to attempt to keep track of my successful experiments on this site. It will be a lab notebook for all to see and an easy place that I can reference again when I want to make the same type of dish.  These experiments won’t be as detailed as a recipe.  Just a log of what I did to make the dish.