Learn to cook

I feel pretty good about saying I can cook. I’ve found I can intuit through building a meal for myself and my husband with what we have in the pantry, even if I’m not working directly from a recipe. I can kind of skim through a variety of recipes to discover combinations to create the flavors I want without being married to a particular recipe. I have enough “staple meals” that I can make consistently as well that I feel good about. I’ve also made grandma’s Christmas cookies two years in a row now without incident, so I’d call it a success.

I posted about this under my “Retire by 35” goal but thought I’d mention it here – I did a cooking class with my hubby during our vacation this past weekend! It was fabulous. I over-use the word fabulous.

Anyways, hubby did most of the skillful cooking – he seared the scallops perfectly. Not undercooked, not overcooked (they can get rubbery if you overcook them). We really loved the class and I learned a lot about how to do a dinner party without causing myself horrible amounts of stress!

So my hubby has to work all day today – first fixing up a condo with his dad, then writing a history course for his school – and I have volunteered to keep him well-fed. He is hereby evicted from the kitchen. This is a big deal, since he is usually the cook of the family and I rarely get a chance to practice this goal. I’ve decided on a few simple things – some that don’t even require much “cooking” but still sounded tasty and good to try.

The menu:

Breakfast: Asparagus & Ham Roll-ups – wrapped with havarti cheese and a slice of red pepper inside, tied with a fresh chive; asparagus cooked until crisp-tender, dunk in cold water immediately after done cooking to keep it from cooking further and getting soggy.

Snacks: Cajun-spiced popcorn

Lunch: Pepper-olive-cream cheese pinwheels with ham

Dinner: cheesy mushroom chicken.

All weight watchers friendly, very excited! He liked the asparagus, now he’s off being handy and I’m gonna clean up and get started on snack + lunch.

who shared his recipe for Whiskey Sauce with me; I made it this evening while my husband grilled up our steaks, and I also made some sauteed mushrooms and onions to go with it (seasoned those with just some Costco Seasoning Salt – we love it and wish they hadn’t discontinued it, guarding the remainder with our lives). Pretty sure after feeding him this my husband is now even more hopelessly devoted to me. Yay!

first time I have ever really made a sauce that didn’t just pour out of a jar, microwave & serve. Was quite nummy!

I have a couple recipes that I cook very well, and whenever I do cook these recipes the food tends to last for about a week’s worth of lunches/dinners, but I can’t really whip anything together on the fly – just not creative enough I guess.

Tonight I made chicken quesadillas – mini corn tortillas, reduced fat cheese (we are on weight watchers), and some thin-sliced chicken breasts. Cooked all the chicken up first, seasoning with a touch of salt and pepper – since it was sliced thin, it cooked very quickly on the stovetop with a little cooking spray. Then assembled the quesadillas and seasoned with a bit of fajita seasoning and cooked them in a pan til they were melty and nicely browned. They weren’t cooking fast enough for the first batch so I turned the heat up, but it ended up being too much. The second batch got a little too toasty; at least they were still edible.

Anyways… yeah. Baby steps. Those took me about 30 minutes to throw together. Tomorrow we are just going to do some basic steaks and asparagus on the grill.