The end of an era

Those who know me are well aware of the fact that you will only find me in the kitchen to eat food or inspect the cook while they prepare all the food that will ultimately end up in MY stomach. Me? Cook? Ha!

My past breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals have always been quick and easy…and delicious. Cereal. Boxes and boxes of cereal. Frosted flakes, Mini Wheats, Honey Bunches of Oats, Honey Nut Cheerios…I love it all. And while living in France I discovered that they love to put chocolate in their cereal. Chunks and chunks of different kinds of chocolate…imagine that, cereal with white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, chocolate swirls, caramel…OMG! So I suppose you can add cereal to my dessert menu as well. Yes, I love to eat, but variety doesn’t matter much to me…nor does nutrition, apparently.

Well, I’d like to make a huge announcement…I have made a life altering decision to play an active role in the kitchen. What does that mean? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have decided to take the domestic plunge and have started experimenting in the kitchen. I’m not sure if what I do is considered cooking. Should the food be edible? Does it matter if the final product ends up a TINY bit burnt, if you can’t tell what kind of meat is on the plate, or if a recipe called for something that should have turned out a beautiful mustard yellow, but my creation resulted in a murky, muddy colour? Well, according to Oxford Dictionary the verb cooking is defined as…

“the practice or skill of preparing food by combining, mixing, and heating ingredients”

Nowhere in the definition does it make mention of food needing to taste good…so I guess I AM a cook! One more thing I can add to my colourful resume.

So, what propelled me to enter the world of cuisine, you ask? Multiple reasons:

  1. One could say I have quite a bit of spare time at the moment. Between job applications and going to the gym that leaves a fair amount of time to go grocery shopping and cook…
  2. As I am no longer a student I have set a new standard for myself. Cereal and instant noodles can no longer be a regular occurrence (though I will still reward myself with a nice big bowl of cereal if I feel I deserve it)
  3. I subscribe to a weekly vegetable box (gotta start packing in those nutrients!!!) and it has forced me to get a little creative. Seriously, do you know what to do with parsnip, Jerusalem artichokes, and Chioggia beetroots??? If there’s anything I detest more than cooking (ok, that’s the old me…I’m a changed woman now) it’s WASTING food. And I’ve learned that vegetables go bad…FAST! So in between job applications, going to the gym, grocery shopping, and cooking, you can also add recipe browsing onto my list. I’ve always loved looking through cookbooks and recipe sites, but never in a million years did I ever imagine actually USING them!

Enjoy yourself as you follow along with my cooking disasters. That being said, I need to end this post now because I think I smell burnt brownies :(