A Year in the Kitchen: January

Finding Creativity Through Unused Ingredients

Jan 30, 2023

It’s the first of the year and the kids are playing in freshly fallen snow. Curled up on the couch, puppy snuggled into the crook of my leg, I take a quiet moment to collect my thoughts for the coming year. This year, I’m choosing to lean into my desires. I want to re-discover the things that make me happy, and make them a priority in my life. To begin my exploration, I make a list of things that bring me joy. It’s no surprise that the kitchen shows up at the very top.

For years now, playing in the kitchen has been my cure for boredom. It is the place I go when life feels heavy and I need to work stuff out. The monotony of chopping brings routine when my emotions feel all out of whack. No matter what time of day, playing in the kitchen brings a sense of calm for me, but especially in the late afternoon. At the end of the day, when my creativity is drained, I gather a pile of ingredients and make a new creation; nourishing my mind, body, and soul all at once.

But in September, our schedule changed. Three nights a week I drive a kid to gymnastics. Right at dinner time. That means my usual kitchen playtime is spent in the car. Cooking has become nothing more than a chore. Come afternoon, I have to pack a snack for the gymnast and a dinner for myself, while also making sure my husband and older daughter have something to eat when I’m gone. Instead of creating intentionally, I’m rushing around like a chicken with my head cut off. Throwing things together quickly, pulling leftovers out, or grabbing a meal stashed in the freezer earlier this Fall.

The kitchen used to be my happy place. What can I do to reignite my love?

I consider making 2023 a “Year of Smitten Kitchen”—where I can only use recipes from my trusty friend Deb—but that feels too strict. What if I have beets? She never uses those! I don’t want to chop my love off at its knees.

When I see the link for “A Year in the Kitchen,” a creative exercise for Exhale members by Sarah Hauser, I’m intrigued. The headline reads: “12 Ideas to Spark your Culinary Creativity.” Once a month, choose a new way to play in the kitchen. Now this seems like something I can do.

The first exercise is to cook with an ingredient you’ve never cooked before. Sarah says “it doesn’t have to be exotic or weird.” But ya’ll, I’m a pretty adventurous cook. Finding an ingredient I’ve never used before seems like a pretty hard task. Especially in a month like January, when we’ve given ourselves a very strict grocery list and have sworn off buying anything just for one meal. It seems I’ll have to take this exercise to a new level: find an ingredient in my house I’ve never actually used before.

So I’ve found a kitchen challenge to help me spice up life for the year, but I don’t really know where to start. I want to be thoughtful over this and choose an ingredient that will be a good challenge, but none of that can happen right now. I have to get dinner on the table. I close my computer and get up from my comfy spot on the couch, frustrating the puppy who is fast asleep. I’ll figure it out later this month, I think. I’m a great procrastinator.

While looking at the meal plan for tonight’s dinner, the kitchen challenge is filed away in the back of my mind. I’m trying the White Ragu recipe from the new Smitten Kitchen cookbook. Best served with fettuccine, it reads, of which I have none. I don’t even have spaghetti in the house. Having made fettuccine several times before, I grab the Pasta Party Cookbook off the shelf. My oldest daughter made me buy it at a thrift store several years ago. I teased her about it then. “Sure we can get it,” I told her; “but don’t expect me to make any of those rainbow pastas. That looks too hard.” Excited that I said yes, I’m pretty sure she ignored whatever I said beyond that. I didn’t know then this book would become my go-to cookbook when I wanted to try something new.

When flipping through the book, I see two toned fettuccine. Oh, that looks like fun! I think, then call my daughter over to where I’m sitting on the couch. We look through the pasta recipes, looking for colors we can make with ingredients on hand. The bright blue catches my eye. “This one uses butterfly pea flowers!” I exclaim; “We have some of those! Let’s pick a color to go with blue.”

I tell her there are beets in the fridge, and we look at the three colors of pasta using beets. A pink, a purple, and a red. She decides on beet-paprika red.

We measure ¼ cup of flowers and pour boiling water on top. The water begins turning the color of blue raspberry Kool-Aid. My daughter, quickly bored with watching water turn blue, goes off to play with her sister, leaving me to play in the kitchen alone. While the blue water steeps, I gather the ingredients for beet pasta. Having made it hundreds of times, it’s an easy place to start. I toss beets, eggs, and paprika into a blender until it becomes a smooth puree. Pouring it into the stand mixer on the counter, I add the flour and watch as the liquid and dry mix together and become a bright red ball.

After the red dough is mixed, wrapped, and set to rest, I turn the blue water mixture. I drain the flowers, saving the water in a mixing cup, not wanting any liquid to go to waste. Squeezing the flowers between my fingers and palm, the liquid drips around my hand, leaving behind a stain the color of a bruise. I mix it with flour, knead it into a ball, wrap it in saran wrap and leave it to rest. The stain remains, and I think back to the kitchen challenge I found. Could it be that I've completed this month’s challenge without even making a plan?

Making two-toned pasta feels almost like cheating. Pasta is a recipe I’ve made a hundred times. The only difference this time is I’m making two colors instead of one. So I’m using a new ingredient, who cares? It’s not a new recipe. Is it?

This idea of creating something new from what I already have has me curious about what else is hiding in my kitchen. While I wait for the pasta to rest, I begin cleaning out cabinets in search of forgotten ingredients I previously squirreled away. As soon as I commit to this kitchen challenge, unused ingredients start coming out of the woodwork.

Chinese Five Spice Powder I ordered for a very specific recipe at least a year ago. As soon as it arrived, I realized I never bookmarked the recipe. It’s been in my spice cabinet ever since. Unopened. Unused.

Black Lava Salt bought on a whim at the farm last November. Everyone needs black lava salt, right?

Biscoff butter hiding in the back of the pantry. What the heck can I do with that?

Cilantro pesto! Carrot greens pesto! I made both in an urgent need to save the greens and let nothing go to waste, but they’ve been in my freezer for more than a year now. Perhaps it’s time to get creative and test it out.

I start to feel like this is a fun variation on Chopped. What meals can I make with the random ingredients I have on hand? The challenge lives in my head for days. Not only do I want to complete the challenge, I want to excel at it. That’s not the purpose of the challenge, but once I’ve gotten started I can’t stop.

After the pasta has rested for an hour or so, I get the pasta roller from its storage place in the basement. “Roll each dough out separately,” the instructions say, “until it’s twice as thick as you want it in the end.” I watch the ball of dough become a long flat line, amazed at what a little pop of color does to brighten my mood. The next step is to roll them together, so the dough becomes blue on one side and red on the other. With every step, I feel my creativity coming alive. By the time the pasta is cut and hanging to dry, I am in love with my kitchen again.

Two nights later, I mix the Chinese Five Spice powder with olive oil and rice vinegar and pour it over chicken thighs. Slap them on a sheet pan with some carrots and brussels sprouts and serve them over leftover Spelt berries. They may be the best chicken thighs I’ve had in a long time. If you haven’t used Chinese Five Spice Powder yet, you have been missing out!

Next, I’m going to tackle the Cilantro Pesto in the freezer. I think it will make a great substitute for the pepita pesto in Diana Henry’s Mexican Chicken and Pumpkin.

“A Year in the Kitchen” is a new series especially for Soul Munchies Insiders. Each month, I’ll tackle a new kitchen challenge and share about it in this space. Know someone who might like reading it? I’d be so delighted if you shared your love with them.

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