Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Culinary Probation

While I love trying new and delicious looking recipes, am I easily tricked by a artsy photo or a foreign language. Like the Shrimp and Feta Mac and Cheese. That stinky, nasty bastard. It had a bomb ass photo.

J and I had a serious conversation about how I spend too much money (and time) making food that I end up throwing away or let go bad in the fridge because I’m too stubborn to admit that it sucked. He thinks I should just stick to making food that we already know we like. He pointed out that I make a mean ham and I should just make that every week. I don’t even make it, it’s a damn Paula Deen ham that already has a honey glaze, is pre-cooked and sliced. All I do is put in the oven and one time I even fucked that up and it got all hard and shriveled.

I’m still licking my wounds from the blow that the “best thing I make” is a hecka expensive PD creation so I thought about it and I agree. I totally need to stop trying out recipes that are out of my league. So here are the new guidelines we agreed on for my cooking adventures:

1.I am not allowed to make anything with an ingredient that I cannot pronounce or don’t already know where to find in the grocery store.
2.If it has cream cheese, heavy whipping cream or any kind of pasta, it’s a green light.
3.Recipes that require onions, water chestnuts, celery or tomatoes in chopped or whole form are unacceptable. (This rule seems more like a challenge.)
4.Soup cannot be considered a meal. Even if paired with a salad or some other crap that will not fill either of us.

I’m most excited to try my hand at making Chinese food. I love me some Chinese food. Oh and we’re going to have a homemade pizza bar for our dating anniversary since I found this post and it made me shit myself. I want to try crazy pizza combinations and something about a tiny Asian girl who describes herself as a “fat ass” is hilarious to me.

18 comments:

Brandy said...

Get yourself one of those cookbooks that has only recipes that have 5 ingredients. In my long experience cooking that is the best way to find easy no fail recipes.
Also the magazine Real Simple, every recipe I have made from there has been awesome town.

I am interested in rule 3, onions and tomatoes are pretty awesome.

Raquel said...

@Brandy- I totally need one of those cookbooks.

karla said...

thepioneerwoman.com and tastykitchen.com. I SUCKED at cooking before the pioneer woman. There are amazing photos, just really look at the end where it says "easy, intermediate or hard". She means it. I made homemade tirimisu and it almost killed me. NEVER AGAIN. However the chicken salad (I take out the celery and onions and use sunflower seeds, grapes and a finely chopped apple), marlboro man sandwich and pork chops keep me coming back over and over. Oh, and she LOVES butter and whipping cream.

EmilyB said...

I love making Asian-inspired food. I can't bring myself to call it Chinese food because it's never like the take-out places. But it usually turns out really well and much healthier. I agree w/ the Pioneer Woman and Tasty Kitchen recs. I also like these food blogs:

http://annies-eats.com/

http://www.playinghouseblog.com/

Both feature mostly "normal" food that's pretty easy. Good luck!

Raquel said...

@Karla- I just found Tasty Kitchen and have bookmarked a few recipes that I'm going to try this month and I've browsed through Pioneer Woman's site but she loves her some red sauce and BBQ and me no likey. I desperately want to love her though since she's a ginger too.

@Emily- If my Chinese food doesn't taste like it came from China Wok I am going to throw a King Kong fit. I just did a few recipes from Annie's Eats and love her since she has pictures. I love pictures.

karla said...

Raquel- on the tasty kitchen website you NEED to make the Butter Chicken if you like Indian! Oh my goodness...its my favorite and SUPER easy. I only used like half the whipping cream because its a bit over board. I think I used around 1/2 the pt.

karla said...

right...you are not a fan of red sauce. Discregard.

Nell said...

i got placed on probation from cooking when i started a little fire while cooking... lucky for me i get supervised by my bf now just because he is a better cook than me..JEZ ... but i do manage to throw the food at him in frustration LOL

Nell said...

raquel when the code to post the comment came up it was just TRANNIES LOL

Laura said...

I'm curious about rule #3. Also I think rules were meant to be broken. At least rules about what I am allowed to cook would make me want to nothing but break those rules anyway!

Raquel said...

@Karla- like Indian from India?

@Nell- Whaaaa? He knows how to cook? Lucky!
Trannies is a totally appropriate code for this blog. I love it.

@Laura- Hubs hates all of those things so he thinks a rule like this is completely acceptable. Ironically, all of them are on the shopping list for this month.

karla said...

yes, its pretty great.

Oph said...

Do you go on the website ourbestbites.com? They seem easy enough! (Though I've only made two items but still, I'm working on it. I was told to stick to stuff we knew we liked or that has ingredients we like. For example I made Gazpacho which is a cold soup based in either tomato or V8 juice. Note to self- neither of us like tomato or V8 juice. Safe to say that one had to be thrown away. Luckily I then made baked potato soup which was a hit and S said I could add it to my list! Lol

Raquel said...

@Karla- I will have to try that.

@Oph- I do the same thing! We share the same brain. I'm totally going to check out the site today! I love you more than muffins.

Kimberly Michelle said...

Those are awesome rules to follow! I'm very very picky about the recipes I set out to try. I've found that if it's a super labor intensive recipe, I need to have eaten it in some form BEFORE so that I take the time and care and love it when it is done. Because it's no fun spending all that time and effort (& money!) and ending up with something you won't eat!

Raquel said...

@Kimberly- Totally, cooking is a ton of work. I love trying to find copycat recipes of my fav restaraunt recipes since I know it's damn good. Like the Pizza Hut pan pizza crust we're trying on Saturday. Yum

Oph said...

Raquel- that pizza recipe sounds like the bomb. If it turns out delicious can you send me it? S adores pizza lol so it'd make me look really good :) P.S. I'm flattered you love me more than muffins same goes to you!

Raquel said...

@Oph- I know right?! Best crust EVER. I will definately review this months recipes and link back.

 

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