Necessity is the mother of invention. Limitation opens a doorway to imagination.

I often limit myself to a few ingredients to create a new dish, the results are often surprisingly wonderful. Here is a good example:

The new Virginia dish: Braised greens with sweet apple, apple cider, apple cider vinegar, and smoked pork belly.

The original: Greens braised with vinegar, sugar, and bacon.

The exercise: Take a classic southern preparation and re-think it, replacing not only ingredients, but characteristics of ingredients with products from Virginia, trying to keep it at least 75% local.
In this case I limited myself to only two local ingredients: Pork and York Apple.

If you've ever played a guitar or piano with a missing string, you may understand the way limiting oneself to only a few "notes" can actually help you create a pleasant melody that one would never approach if one were not limited in the first place. So if necessity is the mother of invention, then limitation is it's aunt, or some other encouraging, inspiring relative.

The York apples I got from a farmer friend this year were unbelievable. The texture was so perfect it was actually surprising. They were firm and tight, not grainy or gritty, and perfectly sweet. They seemed to be emulsified, in other words, when bitten into the moisture did not bead up in the flesh, it remained trapped inside, yet the apple was certainly not dry or tough.

Any apple will work here but use one that is good for cooking. You might need to add sugar of the apple isn't sweet enough.

I slowly reduced apple cider with some of the flesh of the apple until I got a thick glaze.
to be continued....