Auntie Jo, Where do Recipes come From?

By: juana_cookie Mood: happy Date: 05/12/2008 12:55:28 Music: none

I'm often asked, "Jo, how do you create your own recipes?"  Well...desparation and boredom are great motivators...or as some famous man once said (I believe it was Plato), "Necessity is the Mother of Invention".

I'm easily bored with "the same old same old".  Add to that the challange of being dependant on others to get anywhere...a husband who works two jobs...living a great distance from a supermarket...well, a lot of times, I need to "make do". 

Take last night, for instance.  In the refrigerator, we had two boxes of Strawberries that hubby bought.  Now, hubby just picks up things and buys them...he doesn't check to see the unimportant things, like if they're RIPE or not.  So the strawberries were not the reddest or the sweetest ones I've ever seen or tasted.  So I thought...I'll make a shortcake...well, there wasn't much sugar in the house.  Not enough to make both the hot milk cakes that we like for the shortcakes, and to sweeten those under-ripe strawberries.  What to do?

Well, there's a can of biscuits in the fridge, but I don't feel like making "biscuits".  I wanted something "different".  Maybe I'll make a pie...off to the internet to do a little research on strawberry pie...

Well, most of the strawberry pie recipes are with unbaked strawberries and gelatin...God, I hate gelatin...and I never keep it in the house...but sheesh, I seem to remember my grandmother baking strawberry pie with two crusts, like any other fruit pie.  Wait...here's a recipe for old fashioned baked strawberry pie...add sugar, thicken with cornstarch....back to the kitchen...you know, I really don't feel like making pie crust...maybe I can do something with that can of biscuits ...

Out come the biscuits...separated into several layers, and half of the layers spread across the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan.  The strawberries are "juiced" with the last little bit of remaining sugar...I mix in the cornstarch and taste...ooooh...still a little too tart...what can I add to them that's sweet, but not TOO sweet?...oh yeah...I still have bittersweet chocolate chips in the freezer...chocolate and strawberries...that's a good combination! 

The chocolate chips are mixed in with the strawberry mixture, and then the whole thing is poured into the 9x13 pan, on top of the layer of biscuits, and topped with the remaining biscuit slices.  Looks "naked"....wait...a little melted butter, brushed on with a pasty brush, and then a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar (I alway have a shaker of that mixed up, for topping muffins!), and into the oven it goes!

I always know, when hubby's eyes roll back in his head, and he says "ummm...if this is a 'makey-up', then I hope you wrote it down!", that I have a winner.  And that is how a recipe is born. 

And you thought this was going to have something to do with sex!!!--no, that comes later!