It's only just after 10pm on Sunday, and I'm about ready to call it a night. It's been a full weekend, but amazingly enough, I accomplished a lot on my to-do list. And I scored a huge box full of burned-once pillar candles for a dollar. You just can't go wrong with that. I didn't get my shelves hung, but one of the boys will help me with that in the next couple of weeks. And I didn't polish the furniture downstairs, but it'll keep another week. But other than that, it feels good to have put in some major house time this weekend.
I am generally coming to terms with the idea that just because I live in a new space does not mean I'm a different person with different talents and tendencies. For instance, I'm still never home, I still hate drying dishes, and I have not overnight become a fabulous cook. In fact, I don't think becoming a fabulous cook is like to happen any time soon.
I've always had the sense that I could cook if I wanted to - I can follow recipes, but I don't have a good instinct for what flavors and foods will work together. Most of the time my time is short and so I want to do something quick - pasta, couscous, ramen noodles and salad-from-a-bag top my list of favorite home-cooked meals. Hence my struggle with tea and potluck items. It's long been easier to go out and buy something to eat or bring than it is to make it. And then there's the niggling fear that I'll bring something and no one will eat it. Purchasing something seems like more of a sure bet. So one of my goals this summer is to cook. To follow recipes. To try new things. Not to go crazy, mind you, but at least once a week, make something from scratch. I want to be brave and cook meat or fish. I want to incorporate non-salad vegetables into meals. I want to bake a little - something I feel more confident doing. I want to actually try those recipes I faithfully cut and paste from the Food Section every Thursday, and use the cans of beets I bought on a whim last year.
I may discover in the end that I'm still not a cook. I can live with that. But I want to go through this process of making my food less instantaneous, more flavorful and diverse so that when I have dinner parties, which I want to do soon, I'll have confidence that I can please my guests.
Or else I'll fall back on one of my favorite quotes from a card: Enough of these feminine stereotypes. Andre, call my caterer!
3 comments:
Yes. Cooking is a lot of fun, when I feel like it. The rest of the time, it's frozen and/or refrigerated tortellini and/or ravioli. They come with all sorts of different fillings, and I'm working my way up to putting all sorts of different sauces on them, *sometimes* coordinating the thing I put on top with what's inside. ooh, la la!
favorites so far:
(now that I've branched out beyond "cheese tortellini with butter and parmesan cheese" and "cheese ravioli with tomato sauce")
- gorgonzola walnut tortellini with spinach cooked in olive oil
- mushroom ravioli with yogurt/herb/parmesan
- chicken/prociutto tortellithings with broth (cooked down) and peas and parm
- cheese ravioli with tomato sauce *and things*! I'm a big fan of dumping frozen spinach into the jarred tomato sauce. I briefly dated a guy who said his Italian grandmother had told him the secret to good tomato sauce - buy a basic marinara, crush an extra clove of garlic into it, add a cup of red wine, then simmer for at least 45 minutes. I mostly just throw some wine at it and hope for the best.
Anyway, I'm still working on it. Fast and tasty cooking isn't something to be achieved in a few weeks of trying. At least that's what I say after a couple of years of questionable practice. :)
oh, another favorite - gnocchi, sauteed with onions and frozen vegetables and butter. They get all crunchy-buttery on the outside!
We would love to help! We've gotten pretty good at the fast, simply, one-pot meals in the past year. I'll get you some of our recipes....
If you want to start by making meat dishes without a recipe, just to prove to yourself that you can do it, make Mom's meatloaf or chicken - both easy, and you can do them without much thought. The chicken is especially flexible because you can bring leftovers for lunch. Once you feel good about them, you can expand the spicing or other components - use lemon pepper on the chicken, or make the meatloaf part beef, part lamb, and add garlic and cumin.
Of course, I don't cook much myself - and when I do I'm more comfortable following a recipe than just being inventive. But I'm sure if I was more disciplined I'd adapt and improve - and I'm sure that you will too!
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