Improvisations

I sometimes have to improvise when I'm preparing something to eat.  Sometimes, the improvisation works well, sometimes not so much.

Over the weekend I had to improvise twice.  First I was hungry for homemade potato salad.  When I went to the potato storage bin, I discovered I did have potatoes, and they had not started to grow and look like octopuses.  Things were looking up!  I diced them so they would cook more quickly while I diced celery and onions to add to the salad.

When the potatoes were done, I added the rest of the salad ingredients and mixed them altogether. Time for the dressing.  Well, that's a bummer, I was sure I had purchased a bottle of vinegar, but none of the cupboards held a new bottle of the tart, sour stuff.  Maybe I just was not seeing an open bottle in the fridge, I looked again. There was no open bottle.  Then I saw it, one packet of balsamic vinegar left over from the time my daughter had purchased several pre-packaged lettuce salads.  Dare I use this vinegar in my potato salad dressing.  Sigh...did I have a choice?

So, I did open the packet and add it to the dressing, the purple color quickly changed its normal look. Uh-oh.  To late now.  As I stirred the mixture lightened, eventually I gave it a taste. By golly, it tasted quite good.  I poured it over the salad, and gave another good stir.  The potatoes got a light purple, more mauve I think.  I took a table spoon and filled it with the salad, then popped the salad into my mouth.  Oh, my goodness! Best potato salad I ever made.  Delicious.  Not having Apple Cider Vinegar turned out to be a good thing.

Now, you'd think one improvisation a weekend would be enough but, come Sunday evening I got a hankering for a peanut butter-jelly sandwich and spread a healthy amount of the stuff on a piece of whole wheat bread.  However, when I went to fetch a jar of jam from the fridge...there was none. Again, I searched the cupboards for a fresh jar of jam or jelly...again, there was none.  Dang it!

I suppose I could have settled for simple peanut butter bread, or perhaps I could have sprinkled some sugar-cinnamon on it but I knew that would not satisfy my hankering for an actual peanut butter-jelly sandwich.  Shoot!  Surely I had something in the house that would be a good substitute for jelly.  I pulled the refrigerator door open, and stared longingly at the items within. I got nuttin!  As I was about to close the door I spied several bottles of various flavored pancake syrups.  Wait a minute!  I grabbed the blueberry one, opened it and allowed it to ooze across the bread.  I thought it would run off but to my surprise, it sank into the bread.  Holy Mackerel!  I slapped the two pieces of bread together, and took a bite.  I couldn't believe it, my second improvisation worked.  Not one drop of syrup dripped off the bread onto the plate or my hand.  Well I'll be darn.

Considering how awful some of my improvisations have turned out to have two be successful in a matter of days is positively amazing...picture me walking around the place patting myself on the back.