Cooking, a Second Post

I have made so much progress with my goal to learn how to cook.  In fact, I’m to the stage of cooking where I am giving food away proudly, without any fear that it is not delicious.  I started with soups, and I’ve been making all varieties of soups, mainly because they are easy to freeze and reheat and because it is a light dinner filled with vegetables.  This week, I gave away a few portions of lemon, ginger, and carrot soup, because it is a great healer of the sickness that seems to come with school in the cold.

Produce at my local grocery store. 

I find myself cooking quite frequently.  I make a batch of something on Wednesday and sometime on the weekend, after I visit the best grocery store in the area (Azbuka: Alphabet of Taste) and purchase produce for the week.  A few weeks ago, I made two kinds of vegetable broth and have been trying them this week with my soups.  I’ve made vegetarian lasagna with eggplant, and some zucchini eggplant round dish that took ages, a tomato sauce that was pretty nice, and a ratatouille that I’m quite proud of.  I’ve roasted things, and pan-fried, and blanched.

The take of veggies one week.

I’m quite proud of yesterday, though.  Yesterday, I took a variety of ingredients that I had in my fridge from other soups and leftovers of things, and put it all together in a new soup.  I didn’t have to follow a recipe, and just judged portions based on what I thought might be right.  Turns out, my soup is pretty darned good.  Best of all, I know exactly how healthy it all is because I made it on my own. 

More often, I just stir fry some spinach or broccoli with some chilis and have it with my food.  I’m eating amazingly healthy with this food that I make in my own home, powering up my body for all the dance and exercise that I do.

Artistically taken photo of chopped veg.

This time was the right time to finally make it happen.  Finally, after all this time, I think I have finally figured out how to make food for myself and how to enjoy it as well.  It doesn’t hurt that I have a cleaner who takes care of the majority of the dishes for me and helps me keep my kitchen clean despite my working so hard to destroy it.

Figure 1. Soup.

This goal of cooking is never accomplished fully, but I do feel the confidence that comes along with being able to stir a bunch of random things together to create a decent meal.  And, I subscribe to the America’s Test Kitchen approach, trying something 15 different ways before determining which way is the best way.  In fact, with my vegetable broth and stock, I did just that.  I’ve found the better alternative to a bullion cube with super saltiness and the processed taste. 

Figure 2. A typical meal.

I’m happy to have a new hobby, and there are more on the way, I think.