Culinary efforts

One of the things I've taken up lately is food preparation: cooking and baking. I wanted a balance in culinary skills -- to be able to feed and surprise with dinner and dessert. I was never good in the kitchen as a kid, in fact, I used to tell my mom the stovetop was too hot, shrugged off the stirring and left. I did end up baking tons of sugar cookies, which was my signature item during high school. More on my lack of kitchen skills another time... there's a few funny chopping, food stories. (Despite my anti-kitchen antics, I did actually learn how to make eggs, fry rice, pan fry potstickers and whip up spaghetti as a yout', but that was it.)

After spending a reasonable amount of time watching the Food Network, I took the leap and wanted to try a few recipes. I started mostly with Giada's Everyday Italian dishes. We love Italian food and some of her recipes aren't too complicated, so it was a good match. My first decent dish was champagne risotto, which turned out so well that it's come back many times with mild enhancements -- the true sign of comfort. My gnocchi, on the other hand, still needs a lot of work. Profiteroles are in the group with the risotto, yum!

On one occasion at a bookstore I thought a cookbook would be nice to expand my choices. I didn't want anything from the people on Food Network, since that's the joy of FoodNetwork.com. I looked at cuisine specific, people-centric and those books on the hidden secrets of your old-time favorites. I eventually settled on one that featured recipes that only required five ingredients. Wahoo! I'm all about less food prep as I don't enjoy all that chopping, dicing or having to involve so many moving parts that I need a village of bowls to get one meal on the table.

I do enjoy grating, though my first time with our new grater and some parmigiano reggiano didn't go so well. I was overzealous in grating down to the rind that I didn't notice I was grating my fingertips. It wasn't until I stopped that I noticed some superficial cut marks. No blood but a little bit of extra finger texture.

I need to work on my list of dishes that: Taste Great, Looks Great, Taste Great, Needs Work on Presentation, Needs Work All Around. Many of my dishes end up in the middle category, though I do have a few in the first and third group, too.