One night I ordered groceries because I was planning to make Jake and me a nice salmon dinner. Well, the groceries arrived, and instead of fresh salmon, they sent me canned salmon. So there went dinner.
I was still hungry though, and we didn't have much else in the house (because we live in AirBNBs full time and don't have a car). I started pulling out whatever sounded good: an apple, manchego, some honey-roasted peanuts, crackers, a little honey. So I reluctantly added the salmon, put it all on a plate and took it outside.
I ended up vibing by the pool with my laptop, drinking a crisp Sauvy B and eating this completely random "charcuterie" board.
It was so fucking good & I've made some version of it ever since.
The funny thing is, if the grocery order had gone the way I wanted it to, I probably never would have tried any of these things together. Now it's one of my favorite kinds of meals: a little protein, something crunchy, something creamy, something sweet, something salty.
Nothing really "goes together" but somehow everything does.
I think this is one of my favorite things about eating intuitively. You really don't need to know what the meal is supposed to be. Sometimes it's just:
I'm hungry, I have these ingredients. Let's put them together…and see what happens.
Happy accident.
- 100g apple
- 1 tuna packet
- 10g mayo
- 10g honey
- 30g manchego
- 30g saltines
Slice the apple. Cut the cheese. (LOL.) Mix the tuna with mayo, add the crackers and manchego, then drizzle the honey over, or whatever feels right.
There really isn't a "recipe" here. That's part of the recipe.
I used to think feeding myself "properly" meant knowing what I was going to make before I started. Now some of my favorite meals come from opening the fridge and asking a much simpler question, "what sounds good right now?".
Not every meal needs a name. Not every ingredient needs to match a recipe. And not every change of plans needs fixing. Sometimes the mistake becomes the ritual.
What have you accidentally discovered because something didn't go according to plan?