Tuesday, April 18, 2006

The Domestic Track

On Sunday, I officially started my journey of learning to cook. I’ve never really liked to cook, not because of the actual cooking part of it, but because of the aftermath – the clean-up. I hate doing dishes, especially when I’m cooking for myself and have to clean-up, all by myself. When we move to Charlottesville, Noah will be super busy with building all sorts of things for school, and from what I’ve heard, I will not see him very often. One thing, of many, that I look forward to is cooking him dinner and having it ready when he comes home. So, I started on Sunday with cooking pasta in tomato sauce with garlic bread (not cooking the bread in the pasta of course). I had also bought some green beans but Mom informed me that green beans don’t go to well with pasta. What do I know? So last night, I made chicken with green beans and again, garlic bread. Could I be any more predictable? Chicken is very hard to make well. I usually manage to dry it out when cooking breasts in a pan (chicken breasts that is…) I sprinkled some fresh garlic, lemon pepper and lemon juice on the chicken and it came out pretty well, not too dry. If I had more time, I would’ve cooked it at a lower temperature for longer, on the assumption that maybe it wouldn’t dry out. That’s just a guess though. Let me tell you folks, I have no idea how to cook anything, and everything I do know about cooking I’ve learned from Noah. You’d think with a father who was a fantastic cook that I would have it in my genes or something, but it definitely skipped me completely. My sister has the gene…Dad and she used to talk all about recipes and such, but I just liked to help in the kitchen. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but it was a way for Dad and I to spend time together. And Mom? Well, boiling water can be a challenge (no offense Mom). One time, Dad asked Mom to grab some lettuce from the grocery store, and she came home with cabbage. I mean, we are talking about severely challenged in the cooking department. So, I’ve begun the journey. However, I think I should start with some recipes or something, because cooking haphazardly without any direction is not a good place to start for someone who is completely neurotic about getting everything just right. But, we’ll see. I’m taking the night off tonight due to other plans, but I’m thinking of cooking some fish tomorrow. Nothing fancy, just something to get a little protein in our blood. I'm all about the protein. Any suggestions?

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Italian Fish

Ingredients

White fish filets (Tilapia is good)
Jar sauce (the best you want to buy)
2 green peppers
2 onions
1 12 0z. pkg. mushrooms

Procedure

Lay the fish in a lightly greased baking pan.
Salt and pepper fillets, add any other spices that you want (rosemary, cilantro, fresh basil, etc)

Smother in sauce

Chop peppers, onions and mushrooms
Sauté in a little oil until soft

Cover fish with the vegetables
Bake at 350°F for 45 minutes

11:55 AM  
Blogger Always Freed said...

Hmm, I may be heading to the grocery store tonight for some ingredients. And I love the part about letting the fish bake in the oven for 45 minutes cause that means I can work out on the treadmill while the food is cooking. I'm all about the multi-tasking, you know.

1:51 PM  
Blogger Maire said...

I don't have any suggestions of my own because I SUCK at cooking, but I thought I'd let you know that Kiran is a fantastic cook and he can probably give you some pointers, especially about chicken. I'll ask him to email you some pointers

12:34 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home