Cowboy Cooking?

I think I cowboy cook. I just heard of this new vernacular from glutenfreeclub and I do admit that, "Whoa Doggie, I do cowboy cook." I guess that means that I improvise... a lot. If I don't have an ingredient, I substitute--and not necessarily from the tried and true list of Betty Crocker.

courtesy of doberdog.com / Thanks!

The phrase cowboy cooking brings to mind an imagine of the open range and a chef named Cookie, who for the most part fried or boiled beans and coffee interchangably in the same pot and for the same length of time. Consequently, persons who cowboy cook, probably should cook for persons like those cowboys, who didn't have too high of expectations. The cast-iron tastebud kids, (my boys and husband) fall into that category.

The daughter at college has tripped into the puddle of my gene pool and she calls what she does pot cooking. At the end of the week, she tosses whatever leftovers into a pot and drifting from the English tradition of calling it bobble and squeak, she terms it pottage. Last week she left a post-it on the fridge saying, "The pottage this week turned out exceptional, help yourselves!"

It is... and they do... and the six of them, (college cowboys) who are as diversified as California to New England, feast.

So we continue to explore, expand, and reach beyond ourselves and are pleasantly surprised at the results of exploratory gluten-free baking. Some of my best experiments have resulted in magnificent gastrophanies.

The tragedy is, these are rarely, if ever, repeatable.