What happens when I decide to try a new recipe? Chaos. No doubt this is a common occurrence when somebody who can’t cook decides to try a new recipe but why does it always have to happen to me? Or maybe it’s the fact I want to try two new recipes in the same week.
The first recipe requires a teaspoon of fresh chopped parsley. After wandering endlessly around the produce department, an employee took pity on me and asked me if he could help me find something. I said, “Yes, please. I need a teaspoon of parsley.”
He handed me this:
What the hell?
I need a teaspoon, not a shade tree. But, because I’m very shy, I said thank you and put it in my cart. It’s now putting down roots in my refrigerator, waiting for me to figure out what to do with it. Chop it up…or start a hedge around my property line?
The second recipe tells me to shape my meat mixture into meatballs the size of English walnuts.
I repeat: What the hell?
I spent several years in England as a child and, while there are a great many things I remember fondly about the country, I don’t seem to recall the size of their nuts.
Do the English have larger nuts than Americans? Smaller? Do the Americans even have nuts at all, or are they imported?
See, this is what happens when I try to make something that doesn’t come in a can or a box. Chaos!
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Fresh parsley is a nice accompaniment to many dishes. Use away.
And just guess on the meatballs. Form a ball and roll away. I don’t think you have to be that exact, honey.
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Whenever I have extra ingredients left over, you know like a whole shrubbery rather than give it to the knights who say ni, I go to epicurious.com. You can search for recipes that have your ingredient included (and the recipes are rated by users). And it’s freeee.
When I googled and inquired about the size of English nuts, I got some very strange results! Teehee!
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That picture is the reason I now keep parsley growing in my little garden, here in SoCal I actually kept the parsley bush from last year. I’ve never had a recipe call for more than a couple tablespoons of chopped parsley but you can only buy it in the giant bunch. It grows really easy and can be done in a small pot on the window sill. So much easier to snip the little needed than adding parsley to everything just to use it all.
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I’ve never been to epicurious.com, but I’ll have to check it out. The ability to search by the ingredients I have sounds very cool. Thanks!
I might try to grow some parsley this year. I promised my son we could try a little container gardening, so…maybe. I don’t have much of a green thumb. (Or patience. Or any great ambition to be outside during the summer *g*.)
I am NOT googling “size of English nuts”.