The meal plan is set; then hours (or minutes) before you intend to start dinner-you realize you are missing an ingredient. Not the main ingredient generally, but one little item.
Do you?
*Race to the nearest store for said missing item?
*Never substitute and look into an alternative dish?
*Consider a substitution?
I personally have done all three at one time or another. Really depends.
Last night I planned to make Sesame Chicken. Actually a light recipe by Martha Stewart than I have made a handful of times. It eliminates the heavy (delicious) breading on the chicken that is sometimes seen on this dish and uses a egg white and cornstarch mixture.
Scallions, or green onions as we call them here, are used in this recipe and I was out. I ended up going with thinly sliced yellow onion and it wasn’t bad. I missed the color and texture of the green onions, but it tasted fine.