I'm a copycat!

I love to cook. Something about chopping and wandering around the kitchen with a big, sharp knife singing Johnny Cash songs really appeals to me.

What's that? You don't use a big sharp knife and have a Johnny Cash sing along? Well I tell you what, you are missing out.

How about Elivs? He's more my do the dishes man, but it doesn't kill you to cook to his tunes.

Anyway...

So cooking, right, I love it, but thing is, I need recipes. There are many things, which I've made so many times that I have the recipe memorized, but I always start with a recipe.

I want to cook free form, but I'm not so good at it. Usually it turns out pretty scary actually. Until today...

One of the restaurants where we eat out makes a really delicious soup. I have it every time. I really love it. One night over a pair of steaming bowls of this deliciousness I said to Chad "I bet I can make this."

And you know what he said?

"Of course you can." Good man.

I've had it a few times since then, concentrating all the while. Looking at it. Smelling it. Tasting carefully. All the while trying to figure out what was in it.

Tonight I made an experimental batch and guess what??

I did it!! It was perfect. Looked like the restaurant version, smelled like it, tasted like it! It was a tad on the spicy side, so I may need to cut back on the red pepper flakes, but otherwise a very successful first go and nary a recipe in sight.

I'm pretty stoked actually. I feel like my palette and I have had a victory. Tomorrow night I will be back to cooking from a recipe, but tonight my inner chef was victorious!