Unwritten Recipes

Oh my goodness, i actually have kept a promise to myself. I bought cookbooks for small portions. I truly love to cook, but i feel like it's not cost effective (and i'm also very tired after working 10 hours) most of the time. But that's about to change. With the rent increase, i have promised to start eating at home a LOT more. And that called for some new cookbooks. These are the three i got. They had the highest recommendations (and they were cheap via Amazon). 


I'm excited to go through them with Boyfriend Jon and mark the ones we want to try. 

My family had six people in it. Not to mention the neighbor from behind us, the multitude of young boys in the neighborhood, my brother's friend Tommy who practically lived with us, and all the other people who frequented our dining room table. Dad was the cook in the family, and we were blessed to never be short on delicious, filling, food. 


Eggplant Parmesan, Spaghetti and my mother's meatballs (she can't cook most meat cuts very well, but she does incredible, divine things with ground meat), Pirogies, Halupcha (cabbage meat-wraps cooked in tomato juice), stir fry, Jeager Schnitzel, Paprika Chicken, Egg flour vegetable soup....the list goes on. 


But not a single dish has a recipe that's written down. We all learned how to cook by practice....and by feeding a full table. So it's very little of a wonder to me that all of us kids have trouble cooking for just a small table. 6-10 person dinner party = no problem. Cooking a real meal for just ourselves, or a dinner for two = lots of leftovers.


It should be easy, just use less ingredients right? So how do you do that when you don't use measuring utensils? I mean, how do you half an egg? Not to mention, dad still has kept some of his recipes secret. It took me over a decade to get his icing recipe out of him. And some of his recipes were created out of necessity. 


One of his most famous recipes is called "Mussgo". And it's easy to make. You open your fridge and say "this Muss-go, and this muss-go..." (Muss go = "must go"...as in it's been in there for a week already). You put it in a wok, stir fry it all together, and serve. 


Sometimes it was good, sometimes it wasn't. Whenever we'd ask dad what's for dinner, if we'd been unruly he'd grunt and say "Mussgo" to stem off any more questions. And we'd spend the rest of the day trying to get out of the house to have an excuse to eat at a friend's place. 


Someday...i'll use these tricks on my own children i'm sure. 

Last night, I had a major craving. Olive Garden's Chicken and Gnocchi soup. So trying to cook at home more, i looked up a copycat recipe. Oh internet, where would i be without you? 


Looking back on the math now, it would have been more cost effective to go to Olive Garden and get it for take out. But $80 later and many staple groceries heavier, i got back to my place and got to chopping, slicing, dicing, mincing and cooking. 


Finally by 7:30 it was ready. It was worth the wait. ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS, even without the Gnocchi/dumplings which i couldn't find.