Look! I Cook!

For those who know me, they know I don't generally cook. It's kind of like my green thumb. It's something I want to pursue and develope, but it's definitely a work in progress. Part of this comes from being lazy, part of it comes from thinking everything takes way longer to do than it actually does and the biggest part is simply that I'm a bit of a perfectionist. The first couple times I cooked, things came out no bueno. Then I slowly started trying my hand at easy and/or family recipes that I knew what they took or how they were supposed to be. That started coming out pretty well.

THINGS I FOR SURE CAN MAKE:

a) Chilli
b) Pasta
c) Mango Salsa

d) Strawberry & Angel Food Cake Dessert
e) Roasted Potatoes w/ Herbs ("You say 'erbs', we say 'herbs' . . . because there's a fuckin H in it.")

f) Pot Roast w/ Veggies

Well due to my recent (in the last year or two) endeavors to attempt cooking more, I was blessed with a cooking magazine subscription as well as a stand mixer (love!). As things progressed, I started getting more confident. I've made banana bread, chocolate chocolate chunk cookies, and so on and so forth. One thing I am really trying to learn is to relax. Cooking should be fun! I use to stress out so much that I never wanted to do it. Now that I'm more comfortable (and occasionally ingredient forgetful. Eeeek!) I've even taking to a bit of improvising here and there. I figured out my oven at home runs hotter than the others I worked at so my bread has to cook at a lower temp, I forget butter one time and determined that I want further chunk cookies sans butter (it's better!), etc. These things make me happy because that means I am free to make my own cooking style.

I've been lazily toying with the idea of cooking lately and I finally decided to randomly do so last night. So I opened the windows to relax and listen to the rainstorm outside and got to cookin'. On the menu: Baked mac & cheese and berry cobbler.  And here's how it came out:

Can we say "yum"! It was delish. I like it better with out egg. Still determining my perfect amount of cheese. But all in all it was a good success. It's definitely my comfort food. And this time I was smarter and made it in a smaller dish so I didn't feel like I was wasting so much (for the most part just me is eating lol).

And for dessert . . .

Bonjour! It's berry cobbler. And oh my geez, for my first ever cobbler I was quite impressed. Everything is home made. And surprisingly the dough didn't take long to make at all. And for the berries, I went sans lemon juice and instead opted for a couple spoonfulls of a light sweet strawberry wine. And the lattice pattern up top was a complete improvise. My only change next time would be to add more sugar. Since I was unsure of how it would taste in the end, I went light. But all in all, I'm quite content!

Besides wanting to perfect these recipes, I'd also like try my hand this year at banana bread again, some oatmeal raisen cookies, onion soup and whatever else sounds great. I might even try SillyGrrl's recipe for eclairs. I can't wait for more! I may not have mucho peeps at home, but I work with all men so there's plenty of hungry tummies around :)

I wish you all great cooking adventures. Love!