Learn to cook

I’m feeling vaguely interested in exotic foods ;))

I mean, I already tasted hazelnut butter, coconut fat, all varieties of nuts & seeds available in the store… (including hemp!! lol)
& rice cereal & rice noodles! lol

So the idea is too cook even more interesting & exotic & become excited about cooking again!! (instead of looking at it as just another ‘chore’!!)

I want to be inspired & excited to cook again!!

I cooked a pot of rice with some veggies (carrot, peas, maize) & have been eating it instead of bread – for all meals except lunch, with salad (lettuce) or other leftovers…

It is making me feel better, physically (the back!) & mentally/spiritually!!

I even did my own salad today (but reaching for the pumpkin oil & vinegar hurt a bit, & left consequences!!)

Mom did a potica from the afore-mentioned (‘quickie’) recipe – it tasted a bit odd.. Maybe because she put waaay less sugar in it?

Tango gave me a link to a cool vegan site (with a forum!): The Post Punk Kitchen http://www.theppk.com
(I’ve stumbled upon it before, but lost track of it!)

Mom made some veggie sarma & we froze the remains. I better get down a recipe cause it was yummy!!

Another forum member said she uses glass jars to freeze stuff & they last up to 3 months okay (she didn’t try it for longer). I might try that!!

My back was bad so – no cooking or baking for me recently!! :(
But when I’m better I’d love to learn several variants of non-meat dishes I can eat on Sunday instead of meat. We used to buy some prepackaged stuff, but now that I’m trying to go Zero Waste, it would be better to go homemade, no?!!

I want to write down the already-tried recipes & have them available for quick reference online (in case I travel or move) & in paper.

It might also be good to start a food diary. Again.

I can cook, sort of (enough to survive), but baking has been an anathema for me – I mastered COOKIES & MUFFINS 2 years ago, but I do think it would be good to add some other things into my ‘domaine’!!

Today we found a cool (& simpler!!) potica (pronounce ‘poteetsah’) recipe online – Coz recommended it!! maybe Mom will be in less holiday frenzy with this simpler recipe!! (It’s a traditional holiday pastry here! see http://www.potica.com for how it looks – though ours looks better! ;)
This is the ‘easy’ recipe in Slovenian: http://www.kulinarika.net/recept.asp?ID=1176&offset=0

Walnut filling is traditional, Mom makes some with quark filling too, but you can put all sorts of things inside, this recipe looks simple enough to try myself sometime!! (& experiment with more exotic things like poppy or carob powder & a touch of cinnamon or such..) I really want to make it with tarragon sometime, cause it’s delicious! (we have never done it, but there’s a very simple recipe online too!! YEAH!! ) Now all there is to do is find tarragon! (I think there will be more luck for this in the summer/spring)

More Slovenian recipes with tarragon (/’dragon’s wort’ LOL): http://www.kulinarika.net/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4102
Another cool Slovenian link about it http://www.agencija-k.si/index_files/pehtran.htm (there’s stuff on Wikipedia & elsewhere if anyone else is interested!:)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarragon
http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Arte_dra.html
http://www.google.si/search?hl=sl&q=tarragon&meta=

Apparently it’s the inspirational thing to do first! ;)

- Not knowing where everything is (after moving or so)
- Granny’s dirty & damaged pots & pans (& storage area), & having to lean down for them or throw a search party
- overcrowded kitchen (did someone say ADD?;)
- Granny’s moaning if I cook lentil soup or chickpea (which both I absolutely loove!!) or if I ‘spoil’ any of her recipes…

I had 2 weeks of feeling absolutely guilty to let her do all the cooking – but part of me wants her to be independent & cook as long as she can! (& part of me wants to help out, but sans the moaning from her side, hopefully!)

- I can’t carry bigger burdens & shop for bigger things… :( due to back problems..
- certain cooking aspects have given me backache in the past, so I’ve shunned from that
- Granny’s tiny-ish kitchen!!

- Mom yelling every Sunday morning (mostly at Dad)
- smelling meat cooking
- seeing raw meat (yuck!) – can’t cook that!!

- people telling me I HAVE to cook (especially if they/others read a newspaper or are online;)!!

I used to love cooking at the dorm, or when I was home on Summer breaks… Or living on my own in Granny’s flat… (I did have to sanitize the kitchen first & get used to it!)

So there.

I want to LOVE cooking again. & I want to come to some sort of compromise with Grams (& Mom, on weekends). Dad & I had a system going, where everyone did something & it was done quickly.

I can cook. I mean, vegetarian things and simple dishes.

But I want to add pizzaz to my cooking. I want to like to cook again, and enjoy cooking, and create some fun new menus and dishes we can incorporate into the weekly menus.

Ideally, I’d have the monthly menu or at least the weekly menus running again, but as I’m not the primary chef right now, I let others do the worrying and inventing right now. cook betterlearn how to cook exotic foodsLearn to cook more exotic foodslearn to cook exotic foodlearn to cook more exotic dishescook more exotic and healthy cuisinescook more exotic things!cook exotic foodsCook exotic dishes