Cooking For Dummies

Since Mj has been home he's been cooking up quite a storm in the kitchen. Everything he makes tastes good and I am pretty much the assistant. I did make beef stew in the crock pot alone but not really because he told me everything I was supposed to do. I want to get into the kitchen and make dinner for him on my own so that's exactly what I did last night. I can't come up with meals off the top of my head like Mj. I don't know what Bay Leaves are or how to season food and put it together but that's what cookbooks are for right?

Mj puts me to shame in the kitchen and probably always will, but as his wife I still want to make my contribution to the cooking. I also think it's important to share and enjoy meals together. I think he will appreciate my effort and it makes me feel good to do something for him. My unwillingness to and lack of desire to do so in my previous marriage was a mistake that I don't plan to repeat. Food used to be my mortal enemy. It was always seen as something for me to resist so why would I want to bring more into my house and cook it? Especially when I could get by on canned soup, a sandwich, or nothing at all. Not only that but it was the LAST thing I wanted to do after getting home from work. That was the old me; things are different now.

Mj picked up the ingredients I needed while I was at work. I rushed home and into the kitchen to make the easy and totally not fancy Broccoli & Pasta Bianco. It's basically pasta, broccoli and cheese. I found the recipe online at Campbell's Kitchen. The site is full of simple and quick to prepare low fat recipes mostly centered around their canned soups. It fits right into my post holiday eating recovery plan and something a beginner like me should be able to handle. I needed something quick because I don't get home until 5:30pm or so.

I threw everything together and ended up with a lot of extra pasta that Mj will undoubtedly find something tasty to make with. It only took 25 minutes to bake and looked and smelled pretty good coming out of the oven. We had some dinner rolls with it and were able to eat by 7:15pm.

The verdict? It turned out OK. It could have had more flavor but it tasted good. I felt kind of bad because everything Mj makes is so delicious and mine was just so so. Chef Mj suggested that real garlic and pepper would have probably given it more flavor. The recipe called for some ground pepper and I added some Garlic salt but I guess that just didn't cut it.

I will never be on Top Chef but I was really hoping that I wouldn't end up on Worst Cook's In America either. We watched that show on Monday and the best that some of them could do is make canned soup or boil a chicken. I am not that bad off, but I am a long way from being good.

Ladies Only Monday Night Football

Last night a girlfriend and I got together for Monday night football and homemade pizza night. Her husband is gone a lot for work and my man is out of the country so we end up watching football alone the majority of the time (among other things). She is such the creative Susie home maker type. She is my idol!! When I got there she already had the dough made. Whole wheat made from scratch no less. Our primary topping was chicken that she cooked and seasoned herself. Not the Tyson pre-cooked kind that I wanted to bring. Our other toppings included olives, onions, tomatoes, feta cheese and basil. She didn't have a roller so the crust puffed up quite a bit, but I liked it that way. It was like deep dish style and I love me some bread. We had Budweiser Select 55. Two each thank you very much. It's like how low can you go when it comes to light beers. They have one upped Miller 64 and seeing as how I can't tell the difference I'll go for the lower calorie count brand every time.

This particular game wasn't all that exciting so we were chatting through most of it. It was a really fun time. It's nice to have great girlfriends to hang with and while I don't have a lot I really appreciate the ones I do have. There was a time when I really didn't have any friends at all and so I realize the importance of having these wonderful women in my life. There was also a time just two years ago when I didn't understand football at all. It seemed so complicated and confusing for some reason so I usually just tuned it out and wrote it off as something I just didn't get. But I finally said, if you can't beat 'em join em and I starting asking questions and really paying attention when football was on TV. Now I can really enjoy watching it along with everyone else. I'm not just cheering because everyone else is...I actually know what's going on.

To me watching a football game is a little mini social event and the whole experience is enhanced by having food AND friends. At home or at a bar, it's so much better shared then watched alone. Monday night football was a blast. Just the girls.

I Don't Really Cook

I cooked the last two of my frozen chicken breasts so I could eat one for dinner. This is a big deal for me because I do not cook on a regular basis. In fact, I think this is only the second batch of meat or other actual meal I've prepared that required the use of an oven since I have lived here. The first was probably about two years ago and was also chicken breasts. I know, it's really sad but I have lived alone for the last five years and my eating habits have gone up and down during that time frame to the point where cooking just has not happened very often. I am almost surprised when I smell the actual aroma of actual food coming from my kitchen. I am sure that will become less of an isolated incident when MJ gets back. When I went to his place on weekends cooking was something for us to do together and saved us from spending money on eating out ALL the time. I even got crafty once and made up my own recipe that turned out pretty tasty. My first marriage was so dysfunctional I don't even know where to start in terms of why me cooking ultimately never really happened but I definitely want things to be different this time. I never enjoyed cooking growing up. Maybe it's because my mom used to try to make me. She loves cooking and I always wished I did too. I just had no desire to do it; but somehow it's different for me now. The idea of providing for the man I love somehow makes it seem like less of a chore.

Cooking also represents making an effort to eat food with significant nutritional value. This is something I used to totally avoid at home. "Real meals" were reserved for eating out or with friends and family only. In between that at home, well let's just say the pickings were slim. For months and months on end I put three slices of lunch meat, a Kraft single, and mustard between two slices of Wonder bread. I paired it with exactly 14 fat free Pringles and called it dinner. And forget about actually going out and bringing any kind of food home. Money was so tight for a while that I simply couldn't spare it very often but in addition to that, it served a dual purpose of preventing me from eating "excessive" calories. More recently, I will get either Taco Bell or Subway if I want to go out and get something. Five dollar foot longs that last for two days and 99 cent tacos. I stick to the same order every time and know the calorie counts for each item. Old habits die hard. I will also eat Smart One's or Lean Cuisine's at home whereas before I would not. When I am alone It's just too easy for me to fall back into my old restrictive and routine patterns around food but it is getting better. Believe it or not the chicken tasted better then it looks! Boring and simple, but healthy, nutritious, and normal. Rachel Ray I am not-but it is definitely a step in the right direction for me.

Oh, the bummer for the day is that I think my garbage disposal is broken. When I turned it on today, instead of roaring to life like usual it just make this kind of dead buzzing sound. The crazy thing is I hardly ever even use the darn thing. Wonder how much this is going to cost me? My movie for the evening was I Love You Man. It was really good and funny. Now, I'm going to watch Make It Or Break It then go to bed. It is a really phony and dramatic new TV series on ABC Family that is targeted to kids half my age. It's the first show ever centered around Elite Gymnastics so have to watch it right? Well, that's how it started out, but I have to admit that I actually like it!