Playing With My Food

Playing with My Food

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright February 2013

                  My personal cook book is a white binder with a label on the side that reads, “Playing with My Food.” It is full of recipes from friends and family, or torn from newspapers and magazines.

            The label is an expression of how I approach cooking---it’s fun! I know cooking can be drudgery. Occasionally I get stumped too. At the end of long day I want to flop on the sofa and eat something hot and quick out of the microwave. But, food can be soooo much more than that. Wow, in our day and age we have more ingredients, recipes and tools than ever before.

            Of course, not everything I try works. Some of my culinary disaster are legendary. I still don’t have a recipe for Buffalo chicken wings I like. But, the experiments have been really tasty. That’s why I call it ‘Playing with My Food.’

            My goal in cooking is to make things simple to prepare. No twenty seven step sauces for this boy. I also try to make food that is tasty and good for you. It takes a lot of playing with my food to meet goals like that.

Here my recipe for the pasta salad in the photo above-

Paul’s Pasta Salad

4 cups whole wheat fusilli pasta

½ cup sliced mushrooms

½ cup pine nuts or sunflower seeds

½ pint grape tomatoes 9sliced in half)

1 stalk of celery

¼ cup Greek pepperoncini

¼ cup Kalamata olives

¼ cup sun dried tomatoes

¼ red pepper

¼ yellow pepper

½ red onion

salt and pepper to taste

1TBS balsamic vinegar

2TBS garlic infused olive oil

The above is one of the pieces from my book, "This Week on the Farm." Available on Amazon.com and soon to be in a bookstore near you.