Category: cooking

(Doesn’t that sound like a good book title?) As you may know, I’m not super savvy in the kitchen and that’s an understatement. I’m getting a little better at some things as I practice new recipes and take classes, but I’m still cullinarily clueless in general, and every once in a while more often than not I have some sort of mishap in the kitchen such as the banana bread incident this past Sunday.

Bread recipes almost always trip me up, so for practice I wanted to try my hand at baking something simple like a banana bread from scratch. I won’t drag this post out into all of the details from mise en place to the point where I had a mini melt-down and threw the entire loaf of bread away. Instead I’ll fast-forward towards the end of the baking process when I went to check on my delicious dough. The cook time was indicated in the recipe as 55-60 minutes, so at 50 minutes I checked on the loaf and found it to be beautiful on the outside, but needing just a few more minutes on the inside per the toothpick test. And because it did look so pretty, I grabbed my camera for a really quick shot, intending to take more photos after it was done and sliced. So I do have a “before” photo for you.

Unfortunately, when I went to put the bread back into the oven for the final 10 minutes, the pan slipped right out of my mitts and ended upside-down on the rack in the oven. And the middle was just hot and soft enough that it slipped out (in slow motion, of course) and through the rack onto the bottom of the oven before I could get the pan right-side-up. Cue mini melt-down, which is also the reason I don’t have an “after” picture for you. Usually I have a better sense of humor about these things, but for some reason I was so frustrated about this one! I guess all the work that goes into making bread made me feel like I wasted a big part of my day. Plus it smelled so heavenly and I was looking forward to it!

In any case, I’m telling you this story because 1.) hopefully you’ll get a laugh out of it and 2.) because while of course it’s so great to cheer someone on for the things they’re good at, isn’t it also sometimes just a teeeeeeeeeeny tiny bit interesting (or satisfying?) to hear about what someone *isn’t* good at doing? I think it’s totally okay if you agree!

When I first picked up an SLR about fifteen years ago, I wasn’t very intimidated by the buttons or the functionality of the camera, and when I started reading books and teaching myself how to make a manual exposure, I wasn’t at all overwhelmed by the terminology or the math/science aspect of photography. When I was practicing, I could usually figure out why an image went wrong, make adjustments, and get it right the next time.

But for some reason with cooking, I just feel so darn completely lost! I have been spending some time reading recipes, watching the Food Network, and practicing recipes in the kitchen. But I don’t GET it like I get photography. What do certain spices do? Why are some combinations of food good together and others aren’t? Why am I bringing this dish to a boil, and then a simmer? (What does that do to the food, exactly?) And tonight, why did I follow this recipe exactly but it turned out completely liquidy?! Okay, I didn’t follow it completely exactly – I didn’t rinse the canned beans. I did drain them though. Um, okay and I also only had a 10 oz. can of chicken broth instead of 14 oz. so I fudged the other 4 ounces with just plain water. Oh. And I didn’t put the bread in a food processor to make the bread crumbs because I don’t have one, so I just cut the bread into the smallest dice I could without slicing off my fingers. But still! I followed the other parts. And it looked pretty, but underneath the golden brown bread “crumbs” it was all soup. Sigh!

#80 – Take a cooking class on my 101 in 1001 list probably should have been one of the first tasks I accomplished, because it’s downright sad how awful I am in the kitchen. But today I finally can check that task off of my list since I attended a Techniques Workshop at Cookology. The recreational culinary school is in Dulles Town Centre, so I figured it would be a convenient place to start my learning. The facility was big, bright and clean, with plenty of room and equipment for our class of around 12 or so. The course was taught by professionally trained chef, Ian Douglass, who studied at CIA in Hyde Park. We learned a few basic knife skills, searing, roasting, sauteing, etc. The class was two hours long, and we finished up by eating together in the dining area. Let me reiterate for those that don’t know me that well – I am a complete dummy in the kitchen, and have a hard time even making a successful piece of toast. The class was at a pace where even I could keep up pretty well, but I noticed several people seemed to have some basic culinary experience under their belts and they seemed to enjoy the instruction as well. I definitely learned plenty of new things to put into practice.

Seeing these reminded me of the very first dish I tried to cook for Chris in my first apartment, where I thought a garlic bulb was the same as a garlic clove. So in a recipe that called for two cloves of garlic, I used two bulbs by mistake. Yeah. My apartment was extra safe from vampires after that night.

And this is what I made! I sort of didn’t follow the presentation and plating tips, and I certainly also know better than to photograph food with point-and-shoot + flash, but this was just a quick snapshot to show that I did end up with something edible:

Okay, I’m going to give myself a little more credit than that – it was delicious! I brought leftovers home for Chris, and he approved as well. The most amazing thing to me was learning how to make rice. I’ve never been able to do it without ending up with a burnt solid mass or a starchy, cloudy soup. Chef Ian actually took my rice around and showed the rest of the class how their rice should look! Something I made was an example of how to do it instead of how NOT to do it. I couldn’t believe it. I’m planning to sign up for a few more courses to learn some additional skills, but I feel like I’m well on my way to being able to prepare something for dinner every now and then.

I realize this is quite random, but I couldn’t think of a better audience to which I could pose this question. What is this gadget for?! Chris and I are working on purging our house of anything we don’t use, so we’re going through boxes, drawers, closets, etc. Our house isn’t particularly cluttered, but every once in a while I go through a sort of cleansing ritual of getting rid of things around the house, and donate things in good condition that others might be able to use. Anyway, we found this in the kitchen in the utensils drawer. Not the whisk-thingy – I know what that is. The tool next to it. Anyone know what it does? I can’t really Google it without knowing what to ask, so I thought I’d just ask you. (I did try looking at the rosle.com website, but there are a billion gadgets and tools on there.)

In the past several days I’ve tried my hand at cooking a few recipes, all of which were difficult for me, frustrating, and near-disasterous. One recipe for herb and garlic roasted potatoes called for heating some oil and garlic in a pan, and then separating the garlic before pouring the oil over potatoes for roasting. Well, I didn’t separate the garlic (which was not fresh – it was from a jar), and each little piece of garlic turned the blackest of black in the pan after several minutes in the oven. I had to rescue the potatoes and transfer them to a new pan sans garlic to finish roasting them. It’s not that I can’t follow instructions, it’s just that I figured I’d “roast” the garlic, too. I’ve heard of roasted garlic, so I thought I’d just throw it in there. I guess you can’t do that.

Another night I tried to make chili, but we ended up eating other random stuff instead because I didn’t realize the chili had to simmer for 45 minutes, and even after 45 minutes it was still so watery. Today at lunch, I burned a turkey burger and spilled salsa all over the floor. I pouted for a few minutes, and then decided to take pictures of my mess. And then it hit me – I’m just not good in the kitchen, and that’s okay. It’s a skill, just like photography is a skill. I need to practice in the kitchen, just like I’ve spent years and years practicing photography. I may be clumsy and clueless in the kitchen, but I’m good with a camera!

And with that, I’m off to a wedding today! Pictures to follow shortly. 🙂