Somehow over the years that I’ve been doing this tumblr, I have developed an Imaginary Reader to whom I often find myself writing. Imaginary Reader is young person out there in the world, new to cooking, and looks to me for sage advice and recipes and reminiscences upon my youth.*

(It’s okay if you are an actual reader and don’t match my Imaginary Reader. I embrace you.)

That said, last night I made ginger carrots, and I was thinking about telling Imaginary Reader about it, and realized that I think I may have skipped some really important pieces of sage advice. Imaginary Reader! I really want you to feel comfortable and confident in the kitchen! Cooking dinner!

Here is the most important thing, the underlying principle, if you will:

Cooking Dinner is Not Like Dinner Party Cooking

Dinner Party Cooking involves courses and things that are coordinated, and you go shopping in advance to make sure you have all the ingredients, and you follow your recipes carefully. This is wonderful, and it is totally fine to do Dinner Party Cooking on weeknights by yourself.

Cooking dinner, though, sometimes means standing in the kitchen at 7:00 pm, hungry, and trying to figure out what you might make with the ingredients you have to get yourself fed. It is about putting food on the table.

Sometimes I post recipes that come out of cooking dinner and it might seem like they’re dinner party cooking recipes. But no. I got there by standing in front of the fridge thinking “What about risotto? No, we don’t have any mushrooms. What about polenta with greens on top? I don’t feel like greens. Do we have ravioli in the freezer? Do I feel like a souffle? So many dishes. What about scrambled eggs? I like scrambled eggs. What else can I make to have with scrambled eggs?”

There’s a certain amount of half-assing that happens with cooking dinner. But there’s also improvisation and a bit of creativity and relaxing of expectations. I can’t prove it, but I think that if you don’t master cooking dinner, you will always end up eating frozen foods or eating out when you find yourself a little bit stuck in the kitchen. Imaginary Reader, I want you to feel like cooking from scratch can be easy. It does not always mean slaving away in the kitchen. There is a huge big space between cooking a three-course dinner from recipes you just cut out of a magazine and ordering in pizza. This is a space inhabited by rotisserie chicken from Whole Foods with sauteed spinach, scrambled eggs with a side of ginger carrots, that pasta dish I like but with frozen peas instead of broccoli and without the proscuitto and with lemon zest instead of orange zest, polenta with the leftover chicken and roast vegetables, baked potatoes with caramelized onions, a grilled cheese sandwich with a salad.

I can think of a few things that have helped me be able to pull dinner together at the last minute, and I will tell you about them, but I think the first step is accepting a certain amount of imperfection. It doesn’t all have to be perfectly coordinated or plated. I feel strongly that dinner has to have a vegetable, and Dave feels strongly that it can’t just be vegetables. But that leaves us a lot of room to work, you know?

For instance: scrambled eggs and ginger carrots.

Ginger Carrots

• About a pound of carrots, quartered or halved lengthwise and then cut into batons (is that the right word?) about 2” long. You want the carrot pieces to be approximately equal in size, so you may have to cut really big carrots up into sixths and very little carrots just in half, depending on the level of carrot variation you’re facing.
• Fresh ginger, minced (about a teaspoon once it’s minced?)
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• (optional: some ground coriander and saffron)

Combine carrots, ginger, brown sugar, and butter in a large sauté pan with a lid. Add water to halfway cover the carrots (you can add some salt now, too, and any additional spices that you want to use). Bring to a boil, stir, and then reduce heat so that the carrots are simmering and cover. Set a timer for about 8 or so minutes.

Take the lid off and continue to simmer for another 5 or so minutes, depending on the size of your carrot slices, and the amount of water you added, and the size of your burner, and probably other things as well. The carrots should be tender at the same time you run out of water. Let the carrots sizzle and brown slightly in the pan, then serve. (If you run out of water and the carrots aren’t tender yet just add a bit more water. If you think the carrots are getting mushy, you can always take them out, boil the liquid down into a glaze, and then add the carrots back in to coat.) If you have parsley mouldering in your crisper drawer, feel free to add a few sprigs as a festive gesture.

* I understand that even Imaginary Reader is probably not all that interested in reminiscences upon my youth.