learn to cook. Really cook.

It’s a blustery winter day, and I’ve a lot of leftovers, so I’m going to try and “throw together” some soup made of leftovers in the slow cooker pot.

• Set 1/3 bag of dried mixed soup beans in 4 cups of water to soak over night
• Put a chunk of left over ham, some shredded carrots and several cloves of garlic (from last year’s garden) into 1/2 slow cooker pot of water and left on low over night

• Removed garlic cloves from the broth (mmmm, whole house smells of garlic!)
• Rinsed beans and added to broth
• Added 2 small handfulls of baby carrots
• Added 2 medium potatoes cut into bite sized pieces
• 1/4 bag of frozen corn
• Small chunk of frozen in olive oil basil (also from last year’s garden)
• Fresh ground black pepper
• Two wilting but not yet dead pearl onions, pealed and cut in half
• 1 tsp “a jus” mix
• Large can diced tomatoes
• 1/2 diced red bell peppers (left over from a salad)

Going to let it sit uncovered on low for an hour or so to evaporate some of the liquid, then add some more diced ham and cover and let sit for another few hours. Mmmm, the house smells yummy!

Non-microwave, didn’t all come out of a can things that I can cook (uses the stove or oven!)...

• Lasagna
• French Toast
• Chicken Pot Pie
• Fried Rice
• Black Bean Asparagus (Cantonese style)
• Bacon & Eggs
• Spaghetti (semi-home made)
• Kebabs
• Hamburgers

I cannot fry a steak medium well – it’s either rare (I like it that way) or cardboard. So my husband does his own :-)

My daughter came over and we made semi-home made veggie soup. Purchased pre-made beef stock, frozen corn and canned sliced toms, but pretty much everything else was fresh – carrots, potatoes, parseley, cellarly, rosemary and oregano (both from the garden) mmmmm! My house still smells wonderful!

For most people, this probably isn’t a Big Deal, but it IS for me! I think I love my crock pot.

She “threw together” a semi-from scratch lasagna when she visited, and it was just wonderful. I have the last piece thawing in my fridge to take to work on Monday. And my husband loved it! (Poor man has rarely been fed during our 20 years of marriage – so he MUST love me, yes?!)

And, when she found out I love to garden and grow herbs and veggies, she gave me this quizical look – like “you grow herbs but you don’t cook?! How CAN this be?!” She bought me a knife sharpener and a paring knife. She knows I like gagets, so she also played up that part of cooking.

So, I have a semi-from scrach chicken pot pie recipe from her that I’m going to try.

I just have other priorities at the moment, like getting my pilot’s license. It was a lot of fun learning to cook – especially with my oldest daughter teaching me. We shared some excellent, high quality time – and I DID add several recipes to the “I Can Do It” file. So now I really can make a few things “for company”, even. So while I give up on this goal, I feel good that I did acomplish a lot towards this goal.

Sun flower seeds, sesame seeds, tomatoes, raw baby zucchini, mixed spring greens, baby spinach, fresh diced lemon basil, a tiny dirssle of dressing. Grilled red & orange sweet bell peppers. Add some chopped meat of some sort – left over steak, salami, left over chicken or ham. A sprinkling of cheese. I can DO THIS! Yummy AND good for the waist line!

Marinated in teriaki sauce. Beef cubes; mushrooms; cherry tomatoes; red, yellow and green bell peppers; canned pineapple chunks; yellow squash; zucchini. My dear husband actually grilled them, but I chose the ingredients, prepped them and marinated them. Healthy. Low fat. Low carbs. But most important – Yummmy!

http://www.daisycooks.com/pages/main.cfm

I saw Daisy cook this on TV this morning. I want her book!

Don’t know if this really counts as Really Cooking, but at least I didn’t use a Microwave Oven! I think this counts as cooking.