Daily Prompt – The Spice of Success

If “failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor” (Truman Capote), how spicy do you like your success stories?

If that’s the case then I must be the eggs that keep scrambling when they get added to the waffle batter.

May 5 – Kitchen Creation

Have you ever invented your own recipe? Tell us about it (or your favourite one).

There are two ‘creations’ that instantly come to mind when I read this…

Firstly, there’s my cheesy pepper rice concoction.

I first created this when I was poor student. I was doing really long hours dancing full time, and would generally come home feeling completely exhausted, and by time I was ready to have dinner, it was quite late. After going through my six-pieces-of-toast-and-two-cups-of-tea-for-dinner phase, (which at one point also became a breakfast phase!) I moved on to this creation. It all happened one night when I was craving rice. Nothing special, just plain, boring, rice. I don’t know why, but I just was. I would sometimes make a big curry or stew, and a big pot of rice, and then portion it up and that would be lunches or dinners for a week, and I would always make my rice substituting water for stock – usually vegetable or chicken.

I’d make it in the microwave, and it would always cook perfectly.

So this one night, I decided to just make a small single portion of rice. Using chicken stock, I cooked my rice to perfection and took a couple of mouthfuls. It needed something. So I hunted through the cupboards to work out what to add… A-HA! A couple of small tins of tuna. Mixed it into the rice… still needed something… PEPPER!! SO I mixed that in and then added some grated cheese… and it became this gooey, peppery, tuna rice dish that became an instant hit, and a new regular in my repertoire of cooking late at night.

The other ‘creation’ of mine is my watermelon drink. It’s something that I generally only make in summer, because it’s so refreshing – especially here when summer reaches temperatures up to 45 degrees celsius!!

So, in a blender I would put a small amount of juice – I would only ever use a special Apple & Mint juice from the supermarket, then I would cut up a whole bunch of seedless watermelon (enough to fill 2/3 of my giant blender) then a big bunch of fresh mint, a generous handful of ice, and another small amount of juice… and blend.

It takes a little bit for everything to blend and for the ice to crush, and it quickly fills the blender – so if you try it, make sure that you don’t overfill the blender, because once it’s all liquidised, it’ll overflow.

Then in a glass, I put some more ice, pour in my concoction, garnish with some more mint and VOILA… heavenly refreshment!!