So I'm a huge lover of music quotes, so I'm just warning you that each post is going to be named after a song quote. Don't hate. No haters allowed, that's my only policy.
Anyway, so I was told, actually it was one of my mom's friends, that I should start a blog about my cooking.
So the story about about this is actually that I HATED cooking originally. My mom had tried to teach me when I was a kid, things like baking a chicken that was full of shit like veggies and spices and god knows what else. But okay, pulling the guts of a chicken out was very low on my list on activities as a kid. I was interested at 10 and 11 mainly because it was the main thing that most of my family did. They would brag as to how their dish was new and it turned out beautifully. My Aunt Lise and my grandma and my mom of course seemed to be very adapt at making amazing dishes that everyone complimented and everyone wanted the recipe of. I started to get a bit jealous at around 16 because well... I didn't know how to keep up with that. How was I supposed to follow that act? I thought about it while I was bought a couple easy "cookbooks for teens" with recipes for guacamole and mac and cheese and scrambled eggs. It was cool and everything but didn't really peak my interest.
The summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college, my mom and I sort of fought about the fact that I just didn't seem to like cooking. It was an anomaly in my family because everyone in my family LOVED to cook and was solid gold at it.
Alright, fast forward to the summer between my sophomore and junior year in college (aka Present Day). I moved into an apartment. My FIRST apartment. I'm living off campus, without cable and solely relying on the internet and my phone. It's a little tricky but I think that if you play the right song (at least while washing dishes) you are golden.
The kitchen has an oven/stove (full sized thank god) and we bought a cheap ol' microwave etc. Nice sized sink and hardly any counter space, but it's all good. So the first few days, when you realize that you only have a grocery store and not a lot of resources, you suddenly get hit with reality. I had an epiphany the first week I was living away from my mom. I woke up with a hankering for a Bagelicious. A Bagelicious is something that the way-too-nearby Boone Bagelry sells on their menu. Typically it's a bagel (of which they have like 20 different types of bagels of course) and then it's got a fried egg, bacon, ham, a cheese of your choice, and you can get it "Overstuffed" for 1.20 extra which is basically doubling everything on it. It's absolutely heavenly and I order it with an "E.T." bagel and swiss cheese every time. But So I woke up with a crazy craving for it (most likely I had a hangover at the time, actually I'm pretty sure I did since I usually do) and realized "well Shit, I have NO money to spend on food...".
Mom being the saint she was, bought me an absolutely beautiful fry pan and a medium-ish sauce pan, a cookie sheet, a spatula and a couple of wooden spoons. God I love her for that.
Anyway, so I yanked out the fry pan (at 9:30am on a Saturday) and turned the stove on. Medium for now. Went to the fridge and snagged an egg and some lunch meat I had and the bag of bagels in the back of the fridge. Then grabbed the swiss cheese and the cream cheese Mom had also bought me.
After about 10 minutes of hungover cooking, I had a magnificent looking free Bagelicious on my plate. Cream cheese holding the whole wheat bagel to the melted cheese and the perfectly crispy store sliced turkey lunchmeat, and that perfectly mashed fried egg. Oh god it was delicious.
That was when I realized that cooking wasn't as hard as I kept making it to seem to be.
I actually kinda liked it. You just have to watch it, and not be an idiot.
Since then I've apparently made a BUNCH of different things that I would've never even thought myself to even be capable of... (Thank you for the subliminal messaging Food Network!! It seemed to have worked!!)
So among the things that I have made in the last couple of months, include:
Homemade pesto
(and obviously) Homemade Hummus
Hot Jesus Quiche
SUPAH-EASY Tuna mac and cheese
Steamed artichokes
Failure Fajitias
EPIC homemade mac and cheese (with a twist)
and Pesto mac and cheese (we have a LOT of pasta)
Oven fried chicken- with it's own breadcrumb crust
Cleaning-out-the-fridge baked potatoes
MY Personal Bagelicious
Microwave pizza
Buttermilk and Honey cornbread muffins
The Fried Egg Breakfast of Champions (Automatic Hangover Killer)
5 Second Garlic Bread
Sausage Stirfry (with some veggies so it's Kinda healthy... and the keyword is HEALTHY, tell yo mama that!!)
'Leelu Dallas-Multipass- Chicken...Good' Chicken
Salmon and Corn Tomato Chowder..we mean Bisque
REALLY Awesome Chocolate Cookies
Well damn, I didn't even know that I made that much awesome stuff!! That's awesome.
(and if you want the recipe or whatever please let me know)
But basically, having a kitchen with just about nothing to use except the essentials from Walmart, the occasional weird items from Earth-Fare (our health food store next door that's just a bit more expensive) and a couple spices found...around. Not to mention, This Girl here has no car to drive across town TO Harris Teeter or Walmart usually. But I make do; with my fry pan, my sauce pan, spatula, wooden spoons and cookie and muffin tins. I ain't done bad.
My next goal is to not spend a lot of money on food, bought from on campus and to make really awesome meals all the time. I think I can do it.
You can too. I know you can, especially if I can.
No comments:
Post a Comment