Lego Culinary

LEGO Culinary: When I Stopped Following a Recipe and Just Made Dinner

The other night I had a problem. I needed to eat, but time was limited. I looked at the clock and figured I had about 30 minutes to make something. Thirty minutes. Okay. Fine. I opened the refrigerator and had a thought that was surprisingly calm:

What do I have? Let’s go with that.

This is new. Not very long ago, opening the refrigerator with no specific recipe in mind would have resulted in me staring into it as though the vegetables were supposed to organize themselves and present a dinner proposal.

That night?

Chicken. Mushrooms. I had bok choy already cut up. I had leek already cut up. There was a can of green beans.

Yep. That’ll work.

Into the pan they went. And that’s when I realized I had apparently invented a new style of cooking:

LEGO Culinary

You don’t have to build the thing on the box. You just look at your pieces and start clicking things together.

Chicken block? Click.

Mushroom block? Click.

One can of green beans? Click.

Those white crunchy pieces of bok choy I now know how to cook? CLICK.

Leeks?

Sure. Why not? CLICK.

And somehow, about 15 minutes later, I had dinner.

Not 30.  Fifteen. And it was GOOD.

The Secret Wasn’t Cooking Faster The secret was that I’d already done some of the annoying stuff. Earlier, when I had the bok choy and leeks out, I cut up more than I needed and stored the extras separately in the refrigerator.

So I didn’t have to haul everything out, figure out how to cut it, wash it, chop it, question my life choices and wonder what exactly one does with a leek.

I had already done that. Leek was ready for deployment. This may be one of the most useful things I’m learning as I cook more: prep once, benefit more than once.

Future Me is apparently quite grateful when Past Me leaves chopped vegetables in the refrigerator.

Who knew?

The LEGO Culinary Skillet There wasn’t really a recipe, which is sort of the point.

I used:

• Chicken, cut into pieces
• Mushrooms
• 1 can green beans
• Chopped white/stem portions of bok choy
• Chopped leek
• Seasonings to taste

I cooked the chicken and mushrooms, added my vegetables, seasoned everything and let it all cook together until it looked and tasted right. That’s it. No complicated sauce. No twelve-step process. No ingredient requiring me to visit three grocery stores and consult a map. Just food I had in the house.

But Here’s the Part I’m Really Proud Of

A couple of days ago, I was nervous cutting bok choy and leeks. I’d never cooked either one. I didn’t really know what parts I was supposed to use. I didn’t know how they would taste or what would happen to them in the pan. I grabbed them out of the refrigerator and threw them into dinner like they’d been living here for years.

I didn’t need a recipe. I didn’t even feel nervous. I felt comfortable. And cooking was actually… fun.

That’s a sentence I wasn’t expecting. I’m starting to realize that learning to cook isn’t necessarily about collecting hundreds of recipes and following instructions perfectly.

Maybe it’s learning enough little things that eventually you can open the refrigerator and think:

Chicken. Mushrooms. Green beans. Bok choy. Leeks. I can do something with this.

And then you do. There may be no Michelin stars in my future, but apparently I’ve reached the stage where I can assemble dinner like LEGO.

I’ll take it!