become a better cook

I have decided to take a cook book and start at page one.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before.

I have fallen in love with Youtube and have been watching cooking lessons online.

This week I a made very easy to make baked chicken parmesan from the Foodwishes channel on Youtube.com. The set up for this dish is ten minutes and 35 minutes baking time.

Chef John’s recipe is easy to follow and fun to make. He uses simple ingredients and walks you through everything start to finish. His videos are entertaining and educational.

Here is the youtube video:

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Here is the link to his blog:
http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/

I made this dish this week and it came out great. The smell warmed the house and it looked really good coming out of the oven. The croutons are a great touch to a traditional dish.

Chef John has many great looking meals that I want to try. His blog and Youtube channel are worth checking out.

I think a true test of cooking talent is if you can get a four year old to eat. My mother has been having a very hard time getting my sister to eat. She would eat two spoonful and stop eating.

My mother was ill and I took over the house for two weeks and in that time I was able to get my sister to eat regular meals.

My mom was feeding her food like pizza and burgers and a lot of ready to heat meals. I went old school and did everything from scratch.

I started by having her help me cook in the kitchen. I told her the words of the food such as chicken, potatoes and rice. I let her help me shake the seasoning on the chicken parts and pat them. At breakfast I showed her how to stir the eggs.

I think visually the sight of the food made her hungry and the scents of the different food added to to anticipation of the prepared meal.

The day we made baked chicken I also added to the chicken strips of potatoes and sweet potatoes. We also added spinach to our menu. Since my mom has an oven that you can see into we could check in on our meal from a safe distance.

When it was done I set the table and we sat down to eat together. No TV and no toys. I let the food cool slightly and called her in. First she sat down and stared at the food.

I learned that she liked food that she can eat with her fingers and a spoon. I started eating and telling her how good her chicken tasted. She smiled and picked up a drumstick. First words were “Good!” and she ate her entire meal.

Later in the evening I caught her going into the refrigerator for more slices of the baked sweet potatoes strips instead of her usual cookies or juice box.

I’m learning that if we take our time, have some fun with cooking and present it in the right manner it equals out to good times and healthier eating.

I also learned that music helps set the mood while cooking. We danced and singed a little bit as we prepared our meal.

Over the past few months I have been cooking new meals from collection of recipes.

To date I have made: chicken marsala, spanish beans and rice, spanish style pot roast, sofrito, chicken curry, potato salad, chicken salad, fresh sun dried tomato spread, sundried tomato, mozzerella, basil pasta salad, oatmeal crisp, and enchiladas.

My husband and I have enjoyed the meals and are eager to try some more.

I am thinking of trying to make indian dishes. There is this great place I eat at called Bombay Palace. This place serves fresh hot tasty dishes that please the taste buds. The food is so good you want to eat every day.

I found out yesterday that Bombay Palace has a cookbook. I am going to add this to my wish list and get it this Christmas.

I want to learn how to make eggplant curry. I had some last week and fell in love with it. I love eggplant parm and this curry version knocked it right out of the box.

I want to make this dessert called Kheer. It’s rice pudding with these thin noodles. It’s a very comforting dish.

I am realizing that cooking is about trial and error. I try to make the dish as described in the recipe, try it out and if we don’t like something in it we improvise or change an ingrident and try it again.

I have tried new spices with my cooking such as curry, ginger, marsala, cummin, cumdin and balsamic vinegar.

I do surveys online and I was able to trade my points in for a compact electric grill.

My first meal with it sucked big time. I think I used the wrong products.

I was going to throw out the mini grill but a friend suggested I keep even I only used it to make grill cheese sandwiches. I took the manual out and read it and decided to give it another try.

This time I made cheeseburgers with my little grill. I decide to make small burgers using ground sirloin. I made mashed potatoes with a little bit of ricotta cheese and a table spoon of Ken’s Casear Dressing whipped in.

The Verdict…

Kisses from my dear hubby and praise for a good meal. He likes the less fatty burger that was grilled in about 10 minutes. There was less grease and more yummy goodness.

I made a zesty burger sauce using a little bit of casear dressing and BBQ sauce. Zummy!

We had coffee before bed and we were set.

I experimented this past week and made Hot Pockets.

I bought some canned pizza dough and spread the dough out. I layered slice deli turkey, cheese and tomatoes inside. I season it to taste and folded the dough over to make a calzone type hot pocket. I rubbed a little Olive Oil on top and backed my monster hot pocket.

My husband liked them a lot. I made one for him and one for me. We were able to eat for like three days. It is a very filling meal on it’s own and tasted great.

The only thing I would do different is stretch the dough out a little more to make the bread thinner.

I figure you can make any kind of hot pocket you want with the right ingredients.

I tried to make egg salad for the first time in my life. I used dijon mustard, relish and Ken’s no carb casear dressing instead of mayo.

I made a small batch and chilled it before trying it out. I was hoping to find a meal replacement for all the starchy foods I like such as mashed potatoes and rice.

I tasted it and my husband tasted it. We both agreed it came out good and we will eat it again.

I made pizza for my husband yesterday. Not from scratch but close enough.

I went and got pita like flat bread, tomatos sauce (sausage and garlic), low fat five cheese mix, sweet red peppers in a jar, salami for him and two pieces of baked chicken for me.

I made him a salami and red pepper pizza that was done in ten minutes. He liked it a lot. He said it’s a keep for a quick weekend meal.

I tried Tyson precooked roasted chicken that was heat and serve. The chicken was great and just the way I liked it. I realize that there are so many new and exciting (and low fat) things to try at the supermarket.

I can take the precooked chicken and salad to eat at lunch at work. So not only did I make a quick and easy meal but I learned something new too.

Today’s dinner passed the taster’s test. The meat loaf came out tasting like meat loaf and not soggy meat like my previous attempts.

My stove’s a little funky and the sauce on the meatloaf was a bit well done.

Overall it’s a keeper.

We have left overs for sandwiches for dinner tommorow.

I get this monthly Kraft foods magazine and decide to try a new recipe this weekend.

I am trying a meat loaf made with eggs, chicken stuffing, water and BBQ sauce inside and parmasan mashed potatoes.

I used low fat substitutions to try and make it more healthy.

It baking now. The mashed potatoes are looking good. The meat loaf smells pretty good because my husband commented on it.

I hope it all tastes as good as it smells.

The Magazine:
http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/FoodandFamily/

Meat Loaf recipe:
http://www.kraftfoods.com/main.aspx?s=recipe&m=recipe/knet_recipe_display&recipe_id=57841