
 Expand your mind using constraints. Cooking with 7-11 and Cadbury Mini Eggs. - wglb
http://blog.inklingmarkets.com/2010/02/expand-your-mind-using-constraints.html
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ryanelkins
I'm just kind of wondering what the OP found at 7-11 to put the mole ON. It
was unidentifiable from the picture. Also, I was sure they would have gone
with some sort of salsa instead of spaghetti sauce. When they were saying
"What has tomatoes and garlic and onions and liquid already in it?" I was
like, oh, he's going to use sals... WHAT? No, not spaghetti sauce!

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nate
Good question :) Well that is one of those things that we just stock up on at
the grocery store: chicken breasts. I was originally going to see if I could
ONLY cook with stuff from 7-11 but that proved impossible for me when I want
to include meat. Since 7-11 only carries things like bacon. Which is yummy
nonetheless.

So I expanded my rules to be like "if I'm at a grocery store by chance and
stock up on some staples" then those can be used. I just want to get away from
the habit of getting a recipe and writing out the list of stuff I need then
having to hope we find the time in the next couple days to actually buy that
list. This way, we use what we have more often.

And yep, might have used salsa if I had some. But we had pasta sauce on hand
already.

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ryanelkins
I imagine the hardest stuff to work around will be fresh produce as it just
has a short shelf life. I rarely follow recipes exactly myself although I
haven't gone this far out there yet. I usually look at a few recipes to get a
general idea of ratios and ingredients and then come up with a blend that
sounds most appealing to me. I haven't gone this far out there yet though. I'm
not even sure what all is available at most 7-11s and Walgreens other than
snacks - although I have been noticing that 7-11 seems to be trying to carry
some produce. Any other unusual combinations you're thinking of trying?

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nate
Yeah, the produce thing is a problem. 7-11 by me has been carrying things
though like fruit, so more recipes I'm making explore stuff with apples and
oranges. I've also been exploring what I can do with fruit snack cups that
have peaches and stuff in them. I found a recipe for a mango chutney, I didn't
have mango :) but I had a peach snack cup from 7-11, turned out great.

7-11 has been carrying avocados and potatoes every now and then. And I hear
walgreens started to have onions sometimes.

One of the most fun cooking experience we've had was when my wife was signed
up for Freshpicks <http://www.freshpicks.com/cms/>. So she would get pretty
random assortments of fresh vegetables and we would figure out what to make
with them or try and screw them into some recipe that called for something
else. I'm thinking of signing us up for that again because it plays well into
this habit of making stuff with what you already have without planning.

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dugmartin
Let me just say from experience, never put a Hersey's bar in a pot of pork and
beans. I did this in 1991 and I still have the taste in my mouth.

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regehr
This reminds me a bit of Andy Tanenbaum's cookbook, which contains a
breathtakingly bad lasagna recipe consisting of noodles and beef topped with
ketchup:

<http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/home/how_to_prep.ps>

I first read this more than 10 years ago and still get a little shiver of
revulsion every time I think about it.

~~~
pchristensen
Ketchup on noodles was big in Sweden.

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gnubardt
I end up doing this by cooking vegan (I eat anything but my roomates don't).
The constraint of not being able to use any animal products while cooking
forces me to think creatively about taste and ingredients.

