Work with what you have.

I'd wanted to make a mushroom borscht out of dried mushrooms I got at the store, but instead of buying plain dried mushrooms I'd gotten some sort of fancy mushroom soup mix that didn't hold up well to being soaked overnight as plain dried mushrooms would have done.

To channel my frustrations over wasting otherwise perfectly good mushrooms, I went ahead and diced up all the vegetables I'd have used for the soup anyway, added a few more, threw them into a pot with a stock cube, some peppercorns, a bit of salt, and a couple of bay leaves, added just enough water to barely cover everything, and began a two-hour simmering process. I'll add some kale and herbs near the end, the beets will get roasted later this week, and I've learned my lesson to read all the words on the packet before opening it.

It's not exactly what Alice Waters would have done, but there are worse ways to cope with disappointment than a lot of fine chopping and dicing.