Ninja Cookin'

Do you ever find that you're just *struck* by a wave of inspiration (or maybe just hunger) when you spot food items at the grocery store? I know I do and I'm a chronic list shopper and get a littel freaked out by the idea of buying an ingredient without a solid meal plan (yep, I'm type-A all the way!) So in order to challenge myself and to step up my cookin' game, I decided to pick up a few tidbits based solely on impulse. This is what I came home with:

• a liter of cream
• a block of cream cheese
• an avocado
• a bunch of fresh baby dill
• 3 beautiful portobello mushrooms
• 3 shallots
• a bit more than a pound of pork chorizo sausage (not in casing)
• grape tomatoes
• 2 super ripe mangoes
• a red onion
• a bunch of teeny tiny asparagus
• and a bottle of whole-seed dijon mustard

I'm not a pro of any kind but baby, do I EVER like to cook... okay, I really like to eat but cookin' it gets me there.

So here's the idea. I'm gonna try to cleverly rock out some nummy stuff for noshing with these ingredients. Cookin' ninja style. Not sure what the EFF it's all gonna be but I know it'll be good!

Oh yeah, and that BBQ chicken dinner last night? It was good enough except for the part where my region is sub-zero currently and I'm only guessing here but judging by the extremely long cooking time of those dang chickens, I'm pretty sure I'll have to add one hour of cook time for every ten degrees below zero the mercury falls. Until it's so cold that the propane gels and won't turn into a gas anymore. Then we *may* have some BBQ interference. Maybe. More later on adjusting BBQ cook times for attempting outdoor cooking in the dead of winter in the Arctic Circle. Ugh. Might just hafta stick with oven-roasting for the time being.

Maybe this Ninja Cookin' thing will catch on and maybe I'll even do it more than once. Here's to hoping I dont' just eat the mangoes straight off the pit and forsake my goals of culinary awesomeness... and let's try to keep that asparagus from shrivelling up in the fridge and tossing it in the trash. K? K.