Where do you look for inspiration when deciding what to cook?
I look to the fridge, my cookbooks, online sources and friends.
The food in the refrigerator is a good place to start, as that is what the meals are shaped from.
Is there romaine in there? Caesar salad.
Leftover mashed potatoes could be transformed into potato cakes or shepherd’s pie.
Olives, cheese, tomato paste and red peppers? How about pizza?
Small pieces of sweet pepper might be sautéed and added to an omelet or tossed with chopped onion and sweet potato, olive oil and perhaps minced fresh herbs and roasted in a hot oven.
It can be like a puzzle, to imagine a dish to prepare from the random contents of the fridge. There are apps and websites that will do the imagining for you, if you do a search for something like recipes by ingredients or what to cook with what’s on hand.
Cookbooks and magazines provide more inspiration than I can possibly follow up on. Last weekend, I brought home a big armful of inspiration from the thrift shop, an extravagant, not-so-thrifty haul of nine new (used) volumes from the Time-Life Foods of the World series, to add to the ones on my shelf. Out of print now, these well-researched and well-illustrated books have introduced me to many foods, foodways and dishes and broadened my horizons.
Another fantastic source of inspiration is a series of cooking classes that P.E.I. Community Navigators is hosting weekly on Zoom. Participants cook along at home, with instructions from newcomers to Canada who show us how to make a dish from their homeland. To date, we have learned to make dishes from Democratic Republic of Congo, Phillipines, Pakistan and
Japan, and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next.
Even among people who have lived in Canada for their entire lives, every household eats differently, influenced by family traditions, preferences, skills, time commitments and more. I am often inspired by what my friends tell me they are cooking and eating. When my neighbour told me, last week, that she was cooking a boiled dinner in her slow cooker, I was reminded that my slow cooker had been gathering dust in the basement. When I noticed pork shoulder roasts in the meat case the next time I was shopping for groceries, I knew it was time to make slow cooked pulled pork.
I used a recipe that chef Peter Hicks demonstrated at the Crapaud Exhibition a few years ago, with a few modifications. The recipe made enough for two meals for two people, with enough left over to freeze for two more meals. I love to have a few ready-made meals in the freezer.
Hicks recommends using a roast with a bit of fat for best texture and flavour. I discarded the narrow band of fat from the top of the roast and left the bits that ran through the meat.
The roast I used was bone-in. After eight hours in the slow cooker, the meat slipped off the bone easily and was ready to shred into bite-sized pieces with two forks.
Pulled Pork
From chef Peter Hicks, Crapaud Exhibition 2019
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 125 mL (½ cup) ketchup
- 75 mL (⅓ cup) cider vinegar
- 50 mL (¼ cup) brown sugar
- 50 mL (¼ cup) tomato paste
- 30 mL (2 tbsp) sweet paprika
- 30 mL (2 tbsp) Worcestershire sauce
- 30 mL (2 tbsp) prepared mustard
- 7 mL (1½ tsp) salt (I omitted, as there’s salt in ketchup and Worcestershire sauce)
- 7 mL (1½ tsp) pepper
- 1.8 kg (4 lb) shoulder pork roast
(I added about 15 mL/1 tbsp, maybe a little more, of orange marmalade; it’s totally non-traditional but tastes good!)
In a small bowl, combine all ingredients except the roast.
Put roast in slow cooker. Spread mixture over roast, turning roast so all sides are coated. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours. (I turned the dial to high for the first hour, to get things started, and then reduced the heat to low.)
Remove roast from cooker and turn to high. Cover and heat to boiling to thicken the sauce.
Pull pork roast apart, return shredded pork to cooker, mix and heat through.
Serve on a bun, on top of rice or with a baked potato.
Margaret Prouse, a home economist, writes this column for The Guardian every Friday. She can be reached by email at [email protected].
