Necessity = The Mother of Invention

Who said it? It appears there's quite a few people who've been acclaimed with it, but whether it was Plato, William Horman, Roger Ascham, George Chapman, Richard Franck, or Frank Zappa, the old adage is true. Necessity is the mother of invention. It makes us be creative when we need a solution to a seemingly impossible task. For instance, in the kitchen. My kitchen, to be exact.


We (my husband & I) are minimalists at heart. Partly because we're old hippies, partly because we've just never been flush with cash. We pay cash for everything, which is awesome except that the closer we get to payday, the more creative I have to be in the kitchen. 


It all began 2 days ago when I took some mystery meat out of the freezer.  First let me tell you, I am crazy fanatic about the way meat should be wrapped before being frozen. I learned long ago not to just bring meat home from the market and toss it in the freezer as is. You may as well just throw it in the trash. Wrap your meat well and label it and you will virtually never find meat in your freezer with icicles clinging to it like an alien life form. If you need help Alton Brown is the man. He taught me all I know about meat wrapping in an episode of Good Eats from years ago. (So sad his show is over.) Anyway, yesterday I found an unlabeled package of meat in my freezer. THE HORROR!!! There were no alien life forms clinging to it, but it was wrapped so well, I couldn't tell at all what it was.  No worries. I trust the process. 


Hmmm...well, perhaps the process is only to be trusted as far as the wrapper is willing to label and date it. My son was in the kitchen late in the afternoon and said, "Ewww!!! Are we having alien brains for dinner?" Sure enough, there it was. A totally defrosted bundle of what was once ground beef. My mystery meat surprise dinner was going to be a meatless dinner after all. 


Now what? I mean I had no meat in the freezer & not a single fresh vegetable in the house. Necessity. OK. Game on!  A quick look in the fridge looked grim. The pantry - full of all the basics. The freezer? Ice cream & some frozen veggies that my husband, self-proclaimed Couponeer, had picked up for .29 a few weeks ago. Back to the fridge. BACON!!! My all-time favorite food. Now we're getting somewhere. There's also feta & eggs. Nope. I don't want eggs for dinner tonight. Grab the feta just in case.


Uh-oh. Only 4 pcs of bacon left. Well, cook it anyway and see what comes to mind. (Besides the thought, "Four pieces of bacon. Three of us.")  I go back to the freezer. OK. Frozen veggies it is. The Green Giant mix is of sugar snap peas, red peppers & potatoes. I threw them in the microwave. I know. Gross. Still, N = MOI. 


Bacon is done. Chop into really small bits, throw on top of veggies, sprinkle with feta & some of my roasted tomatoes from the weekend. YUM after all.  :)


Sorry. No pics. 


Last night though, left me staring for a much longer period of time into the fridge. Pacing between the fridge, freezer & pantry.  Again - plenty of beans, rice, pasta, canned tomatoes, spices, & oils. Pace, pace, stare, pace, gather. (It's the 21st century and we're still gatherers.) Here's what I came up with...

I knew that beef broth would come in handy again! Looking like Black Bean Soup to me.  Here we go!  

Give your soup pot a couple laps of olive oil. Smash your garlic (I had 3 cloves) and drop it in the pot on a low heat. Add to that kosher salt, crushed red pepper, cumin, dehydrated onion & a bay leaf. While that was starting to smell good, I ran a knife around the frozen blocks of beef broth and put them in the pot as blocks of ice. They melted and everything started to smell fantastic. I adjusted my flavorings here & added more cumin. 


When it started simmering, I added a cup of frozen corn & a cup of rice, both cans of black beans and just the single can of fire roasted tomatoes. Two cans would have been too much tomato. Put the lid on it and let it simmer for 30 minutes.


As the soup simmers, turn on your oven to 350 and grab those tortillas. I had some sour cream in the fridge, so I figured we could top it with tortilla strips & sour cream.  I took 5 tortillas, stacked them & sliced them into strips.  Put them in a bowl, ready to season how you like.

I drizzled with some olive oil and sprinkled in some kosher salt & chili powder. Stir it up nice to be sure all are a little bit coated with flavor. They really don't need a whole lot. Corn tortillas are fabulous as they are. Then spread them out on a baking pan. Taste one to check flavor. I added a little more salt. Now they're ready for the oven.

Put them in your preheated oven and put the timer on for 15 minutes. They'll probably need more time, but better to have add time than wish you had looked at them sooner & everybody's oven will act a little different, plus mine is on a stoneware pan, so they take a little longer. I ended up leaving them in 20 minutes. When they're done, put them on a cooling rack to crisp.

Once they've cooled to a crispy deliciousness, ladle up a bowl of your soup, sprinkle with some tortilla strips, add a dollop of sour cream, and VOILA! Something delicious out of virtually nothing!

It was really, really tasty! Get creative! You'll be surprise what can come out of your kitchen when you think there's nothing there. For me, Necessity is the Mother of Deliciousness!


Love the ones you feed!