Accidental gourmand

Sometimes it's kind of fun to look at something and guess at its origins: words, particularly idioms; tools particularly new ones since the basics have been covered for centuries; and food.  Food raises some interesting questions. Take eggs: Who was the first guy who looked at an egg and thought "hmm this looks good, think I'll crack it, pop what comes out into a frying pan and see what it tastes like."  Or milk: I mean who looked at a cow and thought: "think I will pull this and see what comes out and then taste it." And who thought that stringy stuff coming out of a worm could be woven into one of the finest textiles known to man.

Scientists are still discovering uses for things that come out of animals of one form or another.

Once the basics had been discovered, who tried this or that thinking it might add to flavor? Spices, condiments, sauces, all evolved from someone's curiosity.

So now take a guy who lives alone and one night pops a frozen dinner out of the fridge and discovers it contains macaroni and cheese. Now this is un-American and sure to draw the wrath of some patriot  or network pundit somewhere but I don't like mac and cheese.  I don't like peanut butter either and I guess the combination makes me one step short of a communist.

Now this may be a first among all the fancy recipes that show up on the internet; a dish based only on enhancing a TV dinner. Hating to waste food, I stared at that mac and cheese for a couple of moments and then thought about cheese sauces and came up with this.  After the first round in the microwave. I threw a handful of frozen broccoli florets into the cheesy mess and let them thaw and cook for the second three minutes.  They came out just right, warm all the way through, but still a little crunchy.  I never did eat the macaroni but I did have a vegetable albeit in suspect cheese food sauce I wouldn't have had otherwise and had found a way to at least use part of that foul concoction. So, no need to shy away from the frozen dinners that contain mac and cheese any more, except for the necessity, really, to stay away from processed foods altogether.  After all, they are foods attached to television commercials.

But then, not counting side dishes, is there a whole new recipe book out there somewhere that features additions that can be made to frozen dinners? Maybe I can write a best seller yet.

You'll never eat anything again