So. It's been a month and a half.
It's not as though I haven't been eating - I just haven't really been cooking. The betrothed and I have been in the process of looking for and buying our first house, and it kind of took over our lives. What with working, going to yoga, packing up the old place and deep-cleaning, I haven't really touched a cooking utensil. I've missed it. You can only survive on frozen food for so long, and I can only afford so many meals out on the town.
It's weird and a bit frustrating to discover how out of touch you can become with the things you love, when you let your day-to-day life get in the way. Laziness being my primary vice, for the past few weeks I've tended to get off work in the afternoon and simply sit my butt down on the couch or in front of the computer and surf my time away. Mind you, I spend every minute of my work day on my feet, and I don't really get a break, but that doesn't justify the near-apathy that I've been exhibiting for the past few weeks. I didn't go to yoga as often as I could have, so my body felt stale; I didn't really cook, and I definitely didn't write, so my creative mind felt old and useless, as well. Now that we're moved in to the new place, and somewhat unpacked, I feel like life can return to its normal routine.
One of the few things I accomplished in the kitchen during that time was a great alfredo sauce. One night about three weeks ago I was feeling depressed and listless, and Brian (being ever the practical one to pull me out of my mood swings) suggested that we make something for dinner. We happened to be at the grocery store because my bank has a branch there, and I suggested pasta. I wanted a white sauce, and in my negative mood my confidence in my cooking ability was absolutely zilch, so I stated that we would just have to buy a jar of sauce. Brian would have none of this; so, with my handy-dandy iPhone, I found an alfredo recipe online. We got the ingredients, which were few and simple, and went home. The sauce turned out great, but the really good thing about it was how much better I felt as a product of the act of cooking. When I come back to cooking after being away from it for awhile, I'm always reminded of how happy it makes me - and I always ask myself why I don't do it every single night.
As I've said, one of my biggest personality flaws is a tendency to be lazy. Now, this laziness does not carry over to my work - I get a really nice high when I know that I'm working my hardest and being productive. I think that's why I'm thriving in the kitchen atmosphere, because it's fast-paced and there is always something to be done - not to mention that the people are fun, funny, and crazy in some small (or big) way. It's a great feeling to work hard with people who do the same. What I need to do is figure out a way to carry that enthusiasm over into my home life after I leave work. I allow myself to wallow in the fatigue that comes over me on the drive home, and when that happens, I stay away from the kitchen in my house. Which is bad, because I have a fantastic kitchen in the new place! It's beautiful and huge, with shiny stainless steel appliances just begging to be used!
Part of the problem is that my laziness is quite often borne of my lack of self-confidence. I get lazy about cooking because I'm afraid I won't be able to conquer a complex recipe, or I allow myself to be intimidated by the process of buying all the necessary ingredients (although I don't know why this happens, I'm just weird, I suppose), and I just end up making the same three dishes over and over again. This blog is intended to prevent that kind of stasis. I created it to help myself work past the innate fear of failure, to make my natural love of cooking into something more personally productive. I also just want to share some great recipes, but I'm beginning to realize that's not my first objective here.
This brings me back to the alfredo. When I was shopping for the ingredients, I allowed myself to get intimidated by the fact that alfredo was something I'd never made before, and fell into the idea that I wouldn't be able to do it - which is ridiculous in retrospect, because the recipe was so simple. After making it, I kept talking about how surprised I was at the ease with which I cooked it, and all Brian did was kindly say 'I told you so', although not in so many words. He's very good at seeing through my fear and insecurities, and is always far more aware of my potential than I am. It's a good thing I have an outside source to remind me that, hey, I am good at something more than being crazy.
So, after all that, what I started out wanting to tell you was this: the sauce ended up tasting great, and was incredibly easy to make. The recipe was as follows:
- 1/2 c butter
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 c heavy cream
- 1/4 tsp white pepper
- 1/2 c grated Parmesan
- 3/4 c mozzarella
Melt butter in a saucepan and saute the garlic for 30 seconds or so, over medium/low heat. Add the cream and white pepper, then bring mixture to a simmer. Add the Parmesan and let simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, until the sauce thickens and is smooth. Then, add the mozzarella and stir often, until smooth again.
I served the sauce with some cajun sauteed shrimp and fettuccine. The combination of the spices and the creamy, smooth taste of the sauce was very, very good. I'm sucker for garlic bread, and for the next few days I nibbled constantly on bread dipped in the leftover sauce. I would recommend reheating it over the stove, though - the microwaving process caused a lot of the butter to separate.
I have made one real meal in the new kitchen, an inaugural of sorts: the chicken milano. But that was a special meal, and deserves its own post. Be back soon.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Last Week's Easy BBQ
My first recipe for the blog was from a book called 'The Weeknight Cook', and it was a simple BBQ beef sandwich. I made it a week ago, but work, meetings with our real estate agent and other scheduled events (like a burlesque show on Saturday) have brought another Monday before a new post.
The recipe is as follows:
Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
- salt & freshly ground pepper
- 1 1/2 cups barbecue sauce
- sandwich rolls
Execution:
Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Saute the onion and garlic over medium heat until softened. Add the beef, season with the salt and pepper, and cook until browned. Add barbecue sauce and reduce heat to low, cooking until meat is coated and sauce is heated through. Assemble beef into sandwiches on toasted rolls.
There was also a coleslaw recommended to accompany the meal:
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
- 1/2 head green cabbage
Now. I've made this recipe before, by the book, and it was pretty decent. The coleslaw, though, had an incredibly intense vinegar flavor, and was practically inedible. So this time through, for the coleslaw, I doubled the mayonnaise and dijon mustard, but I reduced the apple cider vinegar to a single tablespoon. At this point, it tasted much better, but it still needed something more. I was on the phone with my grandmother while I was making the meal, and she is an excellent cook - a treasure trove of recipes and tricks of the trade. We were discussing the various ways of making coleslaw, and she mentioned adding sugar to the recipe. Ding ding ding! I added a quarter cup of sugar to the slaw and mixed it up, and it tasted great. Honestly, if sugar is going into the recipe, I could probably add another tablespoon of vinegar, as well. I'll try that next time.
For the barbecue, I wanted to change it up a bit - not much, because the simplicity of the recipe is the reason I chose it for the evening, but it needed a little help. In the beginning I added another onion and three more garlic cloves to the saute. I also used two pounds of beef, but that's only because my fiance had purchased a two-pound container at the store, and I didn't feel like putting the leftover half-pound in a plastic container in the fridge and then forgetting about it. For the sauce, I used Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce, which is a really good, really sweet and slightly smoky barbecue. To change it up a little bit, though, I decided to add a quarter cup of spicy brown mustard to the barbecue sauce, which came out to a 3 to 1 ratio. Mixed in and sauted with the beef and the extra onion and garlic, it turned out really well. It was a great combination of sweet and tangy flavors - although I think it tasted more like a really great and interesting sloppy joe than barbecue.
Overall, I really like how simple it is, and how easy it is to make a tasty sandwich with the recipe. The coleslaw is great for serving along with the sandwich, especially if you serve it on the sandwich. The combo of flavors with the BBQ and the coleslaw are really yummy.
I do have my grandmother to thank for the slaw, though - she totally saved it by mentioning sugar. After I added the sugar I called her back to tell her she perfected my slaw, which she thought both silly and funny.
Grade: B+ (because the effort required wasn't much)
Recommend to others: Yes, with changes
The recipe is as follows:
Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion, chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
- salt & freshly ground pepper
- 1 1/2 cups barbecue sauce
- sandwich rolls
Execution:
Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Saute the onion and garlic over medium heat until softened. Add the beef, season with the salt and pepper, and cook until browned. Add barbecue sauce and reduce heat to low, cooking until meat is coated and sauce is heated through. Assemble beef into sandwiches on toasted rolls.
There was also a coleslaw recommended to accompany the meal:
- 1/3 cup mayonnaise
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
- 1/2 head green cabbage
Now. I've made this recipe before, by the book, and it was pretty decent. The coleslaw, though, had an incredibly intense vinegar flavor, and was practically inedible. So this time through, for the coleslaw, I doubled the mayonnaise and dijon mustard, but I reduced the apple cider vinegar to a single tablespoon. At this point, it tasted much better, but it still needed something more. I was on the phone with my grandmother while I was making the meal, and she is an excellent cook - a treasure trove of recipes and tricks of the trade. We were discussing the various ways of making coleslaw, and she mentioned adding sugar to the recipe. Ding ding ding! I added a quarter cup of sugar to the slaw and mixed it up, and it tasted great. Honestly, if sugar is going into the recipe, I could probably add another tablespoon of vinegar, as well. I'll try that next time.
For the barbecue, I wanted to change it up a bit - not much, because the simplicity of the recipe is the reason I chose it for the evening, but it needed a little help. In the beginning I added another onion and three more garlic cloves to the saute. I also used two pounds of beef, but that's only because my fiance had purchased a two-pound container at the store, and I didn't feel like putting the leftover half-pound in a plastic container in the fridge and then forgetting about it. For the sauce, I used Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce, which is a really good, really sweet and slightly smoky barbecue. To change it up a little bit, though, I decided to add a quarter cup of spicy brown mustard to the barbecue sauce, which came out to a 3 to 1 ratio. Mixed in and sauted with the beef and the extra onion and garlic, it turned out really well. It was a great combination of sweet and tangy flavors - although I think it tasted more like a really great and interesting sloppy joe than barbecue.
Overall, I really like how simple it is, and how easy it is to make a tasty sandwich with the recipe. The coleslaw is great for serving along with the sandwich, especially if you serve it on the sandwich. The combo of flavors with the BBQ and the coleslaw are really yummy.
I do have my grandmother to thank for the slaw, though - she totally saved it by mentioning sugar. After I added the sugar I called her back to tell her she perfected my slaw, which she thought both silly and funny.
Grade: B+ (because the effort required wasn't much)
Recommend to others: Yes, with changes
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
The First Bite (sorry, I couldn't help it)
A blog. About food. A novel idea, right?
What I'm really doing here is combining two things I love to do: cook and write. I want to become better at both of these activities. So, I've come here with a plan to blog about the things I cook in my kitchen at home. Another plan of mine is to attend culinary school in the coming fall; I've previously attended college for creative writing, although I figured out early on that four-year institutions were not my cup of tea. I do look forward to getting back into the learning game, though - and I look forward to finally receiving that degree I've always wanted. Maybe when I'm finished I'll frame it and hang it in my kitchen.
I didn't always have this passion for cooking. I did always have a passion for food, however - good, delicious food has always been my biggest vice. My first recollection of really loving food was when I was about seven or eight - my memory is bad, just warning you - and there was this Mexican restaurant in Greenwood called Casa Miguel's. My parents and I went there all the time. Now my parents tell me that it's a pizza place that serves seriously sub-par slices and has no ambiance whatsoever. When it was still Casa Miguel's, we went every year on my birthday for the 'big sombrero': there was a giant sombrero (I think it was turquoise velvet) that they plopped on your head, sang you Happy Birthday in spanish, and gave you this awesome snickerdoodle-vanilla ice cream dessert bowl.
But I digress. The food experience I had at Casa Miguel's was the 'Chimichihuahua': basically, a smaller version of a chimichanga, served with sour cream and salsa, refried black beans, and some very delicious (and authentically not-too-spicy) spanish rice. A chimichanga is basically a deep-fried burrito - a flour tortilla filled with shredded or ground meat, beans, cheese, or rice. The Chimichihuahua only had shredded beef and cheese, but I loved it. It's not hard to love fried things; but sitting next to my father who rarely eats anything spicy and wolfing down this nice little package of spicy beef and cheese was a revelation. Granted, after that, Mexican and Chinese were the only kinds of foreign foods that I would eat for a long time; I have my fiance to truly thank for opening up my culinary world.
After coming to love food so much at such a young age, it seems strange to me that the love of cooking didn't arrive until relatively recently. I've always been able to put together a recipe with no problem, but I didn't start loving it until I was making a dish called Chicken Milano for dinner about a year ago. I'd made it before; it's actually the first meal that my fiance and I cooked together. But this time around, I found it easy, and I found myself really enjoying the cooking process, and I finally discovered that I was really good at it! Again, a revelation.
With this blog, I will be bringing in the recipes that I cook at home, the changes that I make to them, and of course, the results. I'll probably be giving myself a letter grade for every recipe, based on what I think, along with my fiance's opinion. That's the main premise; considering how much I tend to ramble, other topics will be covered, I'm sure. For anybody who ends up reading this, I welcome questions, comments, recipe recommendations and links, anecdotes of your own - whatever you feel like saying, really.
Now I've got to jet, or I'll be late for work.
What I'm really doing here is combining two things I love to do: cook and write. I want to become better at both of these activities. So, I've come here with a plan to blog about the things I cook in my kitchen at home. Another plan of mine is to attend culinary school in the coming fall; I've previously attended college for creative writing, although I figured out early on that four-year institutions were not my cup of tea. I do look forward to getting back into the learning game, though - and I look forward to finally receiving that degree I've always wanted. Maybe when I'm finished I'll frame it and hang it in my kitchen.
I didn't always have this passion for cooking. I did always have a passion for food, however - good, delicious food has always been my biggest vice. My first recollection of really loving food was when I was about seven or eight - my memory is bad, just warning you - and there was this Mexican restaurant in Greenwood called Casa Miguel's. My parents and I went there all the time. Now my parents tell me that it's a pizza place that serves seriously sub-par slices and has no ambiance whatsoever. When it was still Casa Miguel's, we went every year on my birthday for the 'big sombrero': there was a giant sombrero (I think it was turquoise velvet) that they plopped on your head, sang you Happy Birthday in spanish, and gave you this awesome snickerdoodle-vanilla ice cream dessert bowl.
But I digress. The food experience I had at Casa Miguel's was the 'Chimichihuahua': basically, a smaller version of a chimichanga, served with sour cream and salsa, refried black beans, and some very delicious (and authentically not-too-spicy) spanish rice. A chimichanga is basically a deep-fried burrito - a flour tortilla filled with shredded or ground meat, beans, cheese, or rice. The Chimichihuahua only had shredded beef and cheese, but I loved it. It's not hard to love fried things; but sitting next to my father who rarely eats anything spicy and wolfing down this nice little package of spicy beef and cheese was a revelation. Granted, after that, Mexican and Chinese were the only kinds of foreign foods that I would eat for a long time; I have my fiance to truly thank for opening up my culinary world.
After coming to love food so much at such a young age, it seems strange to me that the love of cooking didn't arrive until relatively recently. I've always been able to put together a recipe with no problem, but I didn't start loving it until I was making a dish called Chicken Milano for dinner about a year ago. I'd made it before; it's actually the first meal that my fiance and I cooked together. But this time around, I found it easy, and I found myself really enjoying the cooking process, and I finally discovered that I was really good at it! Again, a revelation.
With this blog, I will be bringing in the recipes that I cook at home, the changes that I make to them, and of course, the results. I'll probably be giving myself a letter grade for every recipe, based on what I think, along with my fiance's opinion. That's the main premise; considering how much I tend to ramble, other topics will be covered, I'm sure. For anybody who ends up reading this, I welcome questions, comments, recipe recommendations and links, anecdotes of your own - whatever you feel like saying, really.
Now I've got to jet, or I'll be late for work.
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