Bon Apetit!

#15 - Cooking

Another one of my outlets is cooking.  I love going into the kitchen and coming out with something delicious to eat.  I guess the biggest part of this is my passion for food and eating.  One can also assume it could be a downfall to be able to constantly feed one's own addiction.  But it sure is yummy!

I didn't cook very much growing up but I watched a lot so I had the basic idea.  When I would visit my Uncle Dale and Aunt Mary we would eat wonderful meals!  My aunt is from up north so she had a much different recipe collection.  It was neat to have some different stuff.  It wasn't weird different, just stuff that my mom didn't usually make.  I remember having her potato soup and the whole time she was making it I was wondering how I was going to choke it down.  I had never eaten potato soup that I liked.  It was always potatoes, milk, salt and pepper.  Thin, bland and blech!  But when she put that soup on the table for us I knew that if potato soup could be good, you could make almost anything good!

When I got married there were pitfalls beyond our control with the house we were going to rent and we ended up living in Jerrad's grandparents' basement for 7 months.  It was actually a very enjoyable time for us.  Marmie got my hands dirty in the kitchen.  It was the first summer for Kitty to be at camp so Marmie was a little frazzled without her help.  She would go do stuff on the farm and leave me with simple directions for lunch.  I had some flops, but overall we still ate. 

Kitty, my MIL, has taught me a bunch too.  She has taught me more about baking.  I remember her teaching me how to make bread.  I asked her something about tweaking recipes and how she felt confident to do that.  She told me that cooking was simply a chemical reaction and if you knew the purpose of each ingredient and how it reacted you could do anything. 

That sparked a memory for me.  In 8th grade I had a science teacher.  Coach Callahan.  He was a typical young coach.  Liked the kids in sports, didn't like much of anyone else.  I had many rough experiences with him that year.  I wanted so badly for him to like me, I wasn't a bad person, I did my work, I got decent grades - why did he hate me?  So one day we were doing a "lab" as a class.  We made chocolate no-bake cookies and bacon.  Coach Callahan was trying to flip bacon in a skillet over a Bunsen (sp?) burner with a plastic fork!  He was having trouble not only because of the plastic fork but because the grease was popping on his arm.  He asked if someone else wanted to do it for him (because having one of your 8th grade students get burned by popping bacon grease is better than injuring yourself anyday!). Still anxious for his approval, I volunteered.  I'm sure he was glad to pass the scorching, rogue droplets to my arms!  I ignored his teaching and just watched the bacon change from raw, cold and floppy to a curly, hot strip of fattenning goodness!

This popped into my head as Kitty was telling me this in her kitchen above the hum of the KitchenAid.  Duh!  Didn't you listen in 8th grade science?  There are some snippets of knowledge that you have and you don't remember that you have them! 

Overall, I'd say I'm not too bad at this cooking thing.  I have impressed people, yet I have also embarrassed myself, and I've made frozen pizza as a substitute on a few occasions.  Nonetheless, I do enjoy it. 

Here are pics from our Valentine's dinner Sunday evening.

Italian Stuffed Chicken Breasts
Lasagna Rollups
Fried Asparagus
Pink Tapioca Pudding

Don't let the pictures fool you... The chicken was under cooked and the pudding never sat up.  But it tasted yummy!