- And out comes the best meal you’ve ever had. Completely irreproducible, because you won’t ever have a half-rotten potato, three paprika slices, 7 separate types of pasta, and leftovers from 2 days lying around. - Reminds me of the best French onion soup I ever made. Had been freezing meat trimmings for a year leading up to it. 
 
- This tool is kinda nice for this exact situation ❤️ - Dish Name: Soulful Tears Stew - Serving Size: 2 servings - Ingredients: - 500 grams (1.1 pounds) of hearty beef or vegetable broth (or water, if preferred)
- 1 large onion, chopped (about 150 grams / 5.3 ounces)
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil
- 1 cup (150 grams / 5.3 ounces) of chopped cooked greens (such as spinach or kale)
- A pinch of salt and pepper to taste
 - Instructions: - Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat.
- Add the chopped onion and minced garlic. Sauté until softened and fragrant.
- Pour in the broth or water. Bring to a gentle boil.
- Add the cooked greens and simmer for about 10 minutes.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Serve hot, savoring the emotional depth of this simple stew.
 - Lol, subbing out beef for water sounds wrong 😅 - That’s where the tears come in. 
 
 
 
- This has kind of been my strategy to cook more at home. Buy more than I intended to buy - force myself to come up with a meal plan before they all go bad. - Before I only bought what I intended, and that caused me to be lazy and eat out more often than I wanted. 
- I used to get take-out at this place where for a reasonable price you’d get: strips of breaded chicken, rice, and a container of curry sauce. The chicken and rice tasted great by itself, and the curry sauce went well with ANYTHING. I mean, week-old leftovers, vegetables about to expire, bread about to go stale, you name it. I tried other curry sauces and it didn’t work. Just this magic curry sauce that went with anything you had left in the fridge. - This is the modern evolution of the drawer full of taco bell sauces 
 
- Yay! Goulash! 
- I’ve come pretty far as a home cook but this is still something I struggle to master. Mostly cause I look at what I have leftover and I’m like “Well I could make this… if I had XYZ ingredients too, which I don’t.” - This is actually a great way to practice improvisation as a general skill. When you start looking at it, most foods are basically different variations of each other. If you break it down to what it brings to a dish, you end up with some incredibly weird combinations that actually aren’t bad at all. Once you’re good at it in the kitchen you’ll find yourself applying it to everything. - You can substitute potato in stews with apples and cornstarch to get the exact same texture but a light botanical taste that complements chicken herbs very well. 
 
- Also Yaminabe, which is somewhat explained here: https://japanese-products.blog/2022/01/08/yami-nabe/ 
- Hot pot is great for this. 






