Recipe: Carrot Raisin Salad

Generally speaking, recipes are merely broad guidelines for the creation of a dish. Very few recipes are anything like the precision necessary in rocket science… although some websites would have their gullible readers to think so.

Fortunately, the best part of cooking and being a cook, is that you get to eat your own mistakes. And THAT is often the best teacher.

So, with the obvious being “said,” here’s a carrot raisin salad, which at its most basic, contains carrots, raisins, and mayonnaise. The dish depicted here contains the following jazzed up ingredients: A stick of celery, key lime juice + apple cider vinegar (ACV), sugar, a tad salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins (of course), dried cranberries (aka “craisins”), and walnuts.😋

Naturally, shredded carrots are the primary ingredient. So if you’re planning on making this dish, you’ll need more carrots than anything else. How many? How about you being the judge of that? It’s YOUR dish, and you’ll make it YOUR way — which is another beautiful part about cooking: It’s highly customizable.

How much mayonnaise? Again, it’s “Player’s Choice” — as much, or as little, as your heart desires.

Don’t like mayonnaise? No problem. Use salad dressing, or some other condiment (though I dare say, mustard probably would not be a good substitution). But hey! To each, their own. One never knows.

Don’t like celery? Not a problem. Omit it.

Sodium restricted diet? (Celery is also sodium laden.) Omit the tiny pinch of salt. But I will say this, about that: Salt, common table salt, even just a slight amount, enhances sweetness.

Of course, there are other salt alternatives, such as

Thanksgiving Carp (or should it be “crap”?)

My Thanksgiving this year was unremarkable.

I said jokingly – although with serious intent – that I should’ve gone to the homeless shelter to eat. At least that way I would’ve had some turkey, dressing and traditional food!

The ironic part of it all, was that I bought enough groceries to feed an army: 25 lb turkey, 20 lb ham, 10 lb pork tenderloin, 7 lb of three types sausage, 2 lb slab-cut bacon, mushrooms (shitake, portobello & white), onions, leeks, fresh spinach, cream, genuine maple syrup, pecans, walnuts, tomato paste, salad dressings, cheeses, and much, much more (over $300 worth)! The meat is now residing in the freezer, while the other perishables are in the refrigerator’s cooler drawer.

Perhaps it was my Matthew 22:9 moment. The well-read will recall that is the parable of the feast taught by Jesus Christ, in which the king made ready a feast but the invited guests didn’t show up. So, he commanded his servants to go out into the city streets, highways and byways and bid all to come to the feast.

My roommate is “vegetabletarian,” wasn’t invited anywhere by anyone she knew, and I didn’t get the invite from my folks because they were invited by my brother’s in-laws (Clifford & Jolene) to their place. I thought that was kind’a ass-holey of them, not my folks, to not invite me. I’m the elder of two, have neither spouse nor children, and don’t lead a secret life. Which is to say, C&J and all the gang know that. I guess they gave me the great big “FUCK YOU” this year.

But oh, dear LORD… don’t let ’em think for one moment they might be “dissing” me – their artificially nice world would cave in around them. But know what’s weird? He’s a Baptist-turned-Independent “holiness” preacher.

See what I mean? At least if I ate with the homeless folks, I’d have been around some folks that would’ve taken an interest in me.

As it was, I enjoyed the fellowship of one human being – my roommate and her dog Atticus – and one other… Mr. Jack Daniel’s whiskey.

Okay, enough carping.

So, the first turkey I had this season was at – of all places – a Chinese restaurant, the Sunday after Thanksgiving! Oh yeah… I also had some of my favorites: octopus salad, raw oysters, shrimp and kimchi, along with some beef – cooked, of course (though I’ve eaten it raw… yum! *LOL*).

I had a couple of laughs that day with my waitress and the folks at the table next to mine. I’m a personable fellow, and I like to laugh and smile.

Folks that know me, know that.

In retrospect, I suppose it all worked out for the best… though I still think it sucks.