It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's SuperCooks!

When Scott and I were living in his condo together, and we both had office jobs, we were pretty good about sharing food responsibilities.

At the time, I had approximately four go-to dishes. Two of which I recently found out he was less than fond of, and had only been pretending to like for certain selfish reasons I imagine you all can figure out on your own.

When it was his evening to cook, I would continually be amazed at his lack of plan.

Me? I had a recipe, I checked off said recipe to make sure I had all my ingredients. When I was ready to cook, those ingredients were lined up on the counter, in order of appearance in my dish. I pretty much viewed said recipe as navigation instructions from the flight deck: you ignore them, someone dies.

Now, Scott on the other hand, he’s flying without radar and buzzing the tower like Maverick in Top Gun.

Watching him cook was both the most exciting and most nerve-wracking experience. He just threw some stuff in a dish and while that simmered, he’d hunt for something else to throw in the dish, and then he’d top it off with a little something else and toss it on a plate.

Delicious, every time delicious.

I’ve grown some since those days in the sense that I now know more about substitutions, I have general ideas of how long each item should cook. But I still use a recipe as a guide.

This growth has come mostly out of necessity. With me working at home, it just makes sense that I handle the meals. Also because I have been trying to lose weight and eat healthier, I’ve become an obsessive meal planner and it’s easier for me to cook the meals I know I can eat rather than letting him go willy nilly and me trying to figure out the nutritional content of “um, I think I threw some tequila in, mighta been a cup, mighta been like a few tablespoons? I was kind of in the zone, Babe.”

In the last six months for money and weight loss purposes, I have become an obsessive meal planner. Sadly, winter has ruined a good chunk of my best-laid plans so far this year.

You see, when snow is about to hit Suburbia, people flock to the grocery stores like they’re stocking a bomb shelter. And guess what they do after snow hits? Yeah, the same thing.

Recently, this became a big problem when we had invited some friends over for brunch. I, of course, had planned to make a quiche and some elaborate sides that would make Rachael Ray turn spinach green with jealousy.

Then it snowed. And snowed. By the time the snow stopped and Scott had fired up the snowblower, it was mere hours before my friends were to arrive. And I was in full panic because all we had in the fridge was some eggs, milk, and less than stellar cheddar cheese.

But I was NOT about to go shopping. If I had to serve them egg on toast, I was not going shopping.

Suddenly I remembered this website a friend of mine had sent me. SuperCook is a GREAT site to help you figure out how what to make with what you have in the house. MAGICAL!

I began crazily entering any random item we had in our fridge and freezer, and it was giving me lists and lists of recipes I could make. I ended up making an egg bake with frozen potatoes o’brien and bacon and some cheddar we had left over from a cheese and cracker night, pumpkin muffins (thanks to Itzys Kitchen I always have those ingredients on hand), and banana bread.

I have to say, it looked like I had spent a ton of time coming up with these elaborate recipes, when in fact I had just whipped these things up.

So to look like a total superstar, I highly recommend Super Cook.

Have you used this site before? Do you have go-to recipe sites you use when you need to make something on the spot? Are you good at creating things or do you need a recipe to guide you?