Experimentalist

I think a lot of people take recipes as a sort of gospel with chapter and verse to be followed rigidly.  This has its place certainly with the resulting food having a consistent reliable taste and texture.  I am one of those that likes to experiment.  I use that word now but as a teenager may sisters called my creations, 'concoctions' for which I became somewhat known for.  One of the downsides of making it up as you go along is that it is hard to make a successful dish the same as before.  Fortunately, with the advent of the Internet I can memorialize these experiments and maybe be able to do it again.

A bit more than a dash of curry powder

Today I made mashed potatoes.  Nothing special to begin with, it is about as common as bread.  What I did though to make it special was add quite a bit of curry powder.  The powder we have is a mix of Turmeric and Pepper mostly.  Now, as an experimentalist, I was mixing this up on a side dish and not the lot of the potatoes.  Using a liberal amount of the spices, I finally got a good strong curry flavor and the color looked a bit like mashed squash.  While I was pleased with the outcome, I think next time I might add in some more butter or cream.

All mixed up

I also added some spices to a pancake mix.  Pretty standard holiday spices, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.  Unfortunately the mix was a bit old and the pancakes ended up on the heavy side.  No pictures because they look like pancakes.  So the to dos for next time is to use fresher base ingredients and perhaps a bit less nutmeg and cloves.  With these two, a little really does go a long way.