Cooking

I love to cook.  I read cook books as a hobby.  I am not a recipe follower, I look for concepts and techniques.  A description in a cook book is a starting point, not a chemistry formula.  I don’t shop with a shopping list, I shop looking for what is good, what is fresh, what is different. Ingredients inspire me.

Recently I stumbled across Portuguese sausage in my local supermarket.  Hmm, what do I do with that? How about a Portuguese seafood stew? A picked up shrimp, and scallops.
I started a saffron rice, bring two cups of chicken stock to a boil, add salt, butter, saffron and one cup of rice, lower temp to low, cover and cook for 20 minutes. At the same time, I started like most savory dishes do, by chopping a medium onion and 6 or 8 mushrooms.  I sautéed those in olive oil, added 8 oz of sliced sausage, half a dozen shelled shrimp, and half a dozen large scallops (cut in half, they were larger than I expected.) I added one chopped tomato (a small can of crushed tomatoes would have worked, I had late season fresh tomatoes on hand.) I added a little white whine and simmered to reduce the liquids (mushrooms and scallops give off a lot of liquid.) I tasted it, and it was a bit bland, so I added salt and hot sauce - hit it out of the park.  Serve over the rice, oh my it is so good.

What have you stumbled across in the grocery store recently?