One of our favorite pastimes is finding fun cooking content on youtube. We enjoy Joshua Wiseman, Jim from Sip & Feast, Aaron and Claire, Ethan Chlebowski, and one of our all time faves is Laura Vitale from Laura in the kitchen. Yesterday we watched one where she made a strawberry shortcake that had Ellie instantly hyperfocused, to the point that life as we know it would not be able to continue unless she were provided with all that she required to make this delectable treat for the family.
I decided to let her go for it and insta-carted the few items she needed that we didn’t have, and this morning she hit it OUT of the park – did everything herself, including following the recipe on the kid phone (my old phone that no longer works as a phone but has wifi here in the house). Super proud of her, and the family devoured it after supper!
Here’s the vid we have to thank for such a delicious dessert:
Speaking of supper, I was feeling inspired by another of Laura’s recipes, one for Tortellini soup. Now, if you know me, you know I am the sort who uses recipes as a bouncing-off point. So I looked at her recipe, and I thought, yeah, that looks good, and I even have all the ingredients… buuuuuuuuut…. what if it also had some protein? Like some ground beef, cooked up with the onions, and say, some bell peppers? And what if then there was also some zucchini and summer squash… and what about some of those potatoes I just got, and ooooh, carrots! So I started chopping vegetables and before I knew it, I had an 18quart pot completely full of veggies and hadn’t even room for the 6lbs of ground beef that Jacob cooked up on the stove. So into a turkey roasting pan it all went, along with a frightening amount of minced garlic, red pepper flakes, dried basil, bruschetta seasoning, a dash or more of dark soy sauce for depth, a giant jug of marinara sauce and about 4 more jars of water, and simmered away while I went to my leg appointment, so that when I returned it was piping hot and all those beautiful flavors had melded together into the most scrumptiously piquant Italian flavored stew – and I completely left out the tortellini because who needed it with all that goodness already in there?
