I knew that I had really turned a corner with my cooking skills when I could pinpoint exactly where I went wrong in a less-than-perfect recipe attempt and became willing to try to make the dish again instead of just giving up. This awareness of how ingredients interact, how to build flavors and make them cooperate, and how to time both the cooking and serving of a meal has both made me a better freestyle cook and continues to inspire me to attack challenging recipes.

Last night's dinner - another Nigella creation - was hardly challenging, but I was making do with substitute ingredients (one of which I'd never used before) and was in a post-yoga state of starvation while cooking. I had chosen to make "Chicken with Chorizo and Cannellini," a quick dinner of poached chicken breasts atop some blanched kale (see above re: never been cooked in my kitchen before) on a bed of sautéed chopped chorizo and cannellini (little white kidney beans). That's all there is to the recipe. Seriously. That's it. And it was yum-my...except for a few things....

First of all, I couldn't find Spanish chorizo at the new Whole Foods. Spanish chorizo, I believe, is cured and thus more like a dense and spicy pepperoni or salami than a true sausage. I made do with the WF homemade chorizo, which was uncooked and in a traditional sausage casing. First mistake: I tried to chop and sauté this per recipe directions when I should have just squeezed it out of the casing and broken it up into smaller pieces, as it would have cooked a bit faster and been a lot easier. Second mistake: I dumped the beans in with the chorizo about 3 minutes too early (see above re: getting the chorizo to brown faster) and by the time it was done, we were approaching that ever-appetizing beanmush stage (and I wonder why M doesn't adore beans...). Third mistake: I bought and poached the world's biggest chicken breasts ever. I had no choice! They were the only organic free-range breasts at the store! I tried to trim them down, I took off the tenders and I trimmed all the fat, but they were still gigantic. (Sing it with me folks: "And we wonder why Americans are fat!") There's just no way to poach such a large piece of chicken in a reasonable amount of time (again, see above re: ashtanga-induced hunger) and not have it be a bit stringy. Sigh.

But for all that the meal was wonderful, a really excellent mix of flavors with such little effort. I loved that the main carbohydrates in the dish (the beans) were also a great protein source. I appreciated the extra vitamins (and shot of color) that the kale delivered. And anything that uses chorizo (Spanish or otherwise) definitely gets my vote. To top it all off, I got to sprinkle our special sweet, smoky Spanish paprika on top of the chicken, the perfect finishing touch to tie all the pieces together.

Mistakes be damned...I'll cook this one again and again to get it right.