I Did Cook, I Have Proof!

Finally I have a chance to let you know how my week of cooking has been going. I cooked dinner Monday (with help from Anthony) and Tuesday. Wednesday night I had a headache and was not in the mood to cook so we ordered take-out sushi. Call me crazy, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t be cooking every single night this week. Turns out I also won’t be cooking dinner Friday since Anthony is working that night. The two meals that were cooked this week turned out to be pretty bland.

Monday night I decided to make Anthony’s father’s pasta e fagiloi. The recipe we had for it didn’t seem very complete so we improvised parts of it. Anthony seemed interested in helping me make this, I think partly because the recipe wasn’t complete and partly because it’s his father’s recipe. We sautéed chopped onion, celery (with the celery leaves), and garlic. Then we added chicken broth about 2 cups and brought it to a boil and added a cup of ditalini pasta. You have to keep stirring it because the pasta will stick otherwise. Once the pasta is cooked you add cannellini beans. Let them heat through and then stir in some grated parmesan, salt, and pepper. That’s it; it’s a very simple easy and delicious recipe. Ours turned out a bit bland. It needed more salt and pepper. Everything always tastes better when someone else cooks it, so hopefully next time when his parents visit his dad can make some!

Final Product:

Tuesday night I was supposed to make Chicken Vindaloo. I don’t have all the spices that you need to make an Indian recipe from scratch so normally I will buy the already made pastes that you can buy at Wegmans. They did not have the Vindaloo paste when I went shopping this weekend. Instead I bought a Hot Curry Paste. Any Vindaloo dish I have had has been really spicy and I wanted to get something that would compare to that. So I made the Hot Curry Chicken the same way I make Chicken Vindaloo. I sautéed a cup of chopped onion, then added 1 pound of chopped chicken breast and cooked it until it was white. Then I added 3 medium cubed red potatoes, 4 tablespoons of the Hot Curry Paste, and enough water so that everything was almost covered (that’s what the recipe says to do) and simmered it for about 20 minutes until the potatoes were tender. The end result was pretty watery, I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be. I served it over Basmati Rice and the rice just sucked up all the sauce, the chicken was also a bit over cooked. It just wasn’t Chicken Vindaloo and we found it a little bit bland (that’s becoming a theme with my cooking). A little odd that it was bland considering I put 4 tablespoons of the curry paste in. Guess I won’t be making that again, unless I can find the Vindaloo paste or can make it from scratch. I also served it with Naan Bread and Daal (Indian Lentils). The already cooked lentils was a great idea, they were nice and spicy. If you mixed them into the chicken and rice you got some more flavor out of the meal.

Final Product:

Let's Get Cookin'

Halloween has come and gone. I’ve had way too much candy! I don’t really have a sweet tooth except for when candy is around. There is no way for me to ignore it, I must eat it.

To ease myself back into cooking I made a Crockpot dish last week. I love the Crockpot! Throw everything in and do nothing with it for 8 hours and then it’s time to eat. How could you not love that?! The recipe is very simple and just contains a can of tomato soup, water, garlic, spices, potatoes, onions, carrots, and turkey thighs. You put the veggies in the Crockpot and lay the turkey thighs on top. Mix up the sauce and pour it onto the turkey thighs. The end result is very tender, fall-off-the-bone turkey meat. It’s a very simple dish, but it's well worth pulling the Crockpot out to make.

Final Product:

In the last week or two I've also made:

Pumpkin Penne

Shrimp and Grits

I know I have been M.I.A. lately, but I plan on coming back strong this week. My menu is: Pasta e Fagioli (my father-in-laws recipe), Mini Cheese Meat Loafs, Buenos Burritos (turkey burritos), Vindaloo Chicken, and Lentil, Spinach, and Bulgur Stew. I don’t except to run into any problems. I’ve made the meat loafs, burritos, and chicken before and the soup and stew don’t seem difficult to make. Of course there is a chance that take-out might play a part again this week, but I’m really going to try to cook Monday-Thursday and one night this weekend.

If you want to try any of the above recipes click on the link to the right of the post call Recipes Used for The Hesitant Cook.

"There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't and that's a wife who can't cook and will."
Robert Frost (1847-1963)

Pasta With Broccoli and Artichokes

Day 7-Still counting the days. I feel less depressed today even though I don't feel well. Let me just state for the record, I do not believe my food is the cause of my illness. Anthony eats all the same things as me and is as healthy as a horse. (Apparently horses are very healthy!) I'm hoping there will still be cooking happening tonight, but I will just have to wait and see how I feel.

Onto last night. I felt the need for redemption. After that terrible excuse for a pasta dish-Pasta Ponza and let's not forget the Pasta Nests-I really felt like I needed to redeem myself. I'm not creating these recipes (I haven't gotten to that stage yet), but I'm assuming they work out perfectly when the recipe creators make them. Maybe it's my lack of skill and finesse in the kitchen. I won't give up that easily. I refuse to believe that as an Italian, I can not make a good pasta dish. Plus I make really good lasagna and that's pasta! That's why I decided to make Pasta With Broccoli and Artichokes. I'm not quite sure why the title of the recipe is what it is. There is more in the dish then broccoli and artichokes, such as red peppers, onions, and black olives. I guess the name would have been ridiculous though if it were, Pasta With Broccoli, Artichokes, Red Peppers, Onions, and Black Olives.

As we all know I am not good when it comes to cutting food products. This recipe was daunting. Here is a picture of all the items I needed to cut, plus parsley is omitted from the photo.

Yikes! I was up for the challenge though, all I wanted was for the dish to look like the picture in the cookbook and to taste good. I chopped the broccoli up (most likely not correctly) and put it on the stove to steam. I did have to review with Anthony how to steam veggies. I know I steamed green beans earlier in this blog, but that was before vacation. Also I'm super proud of myself for using fresh broccoli. The recipe only calls for 1 cup of cooked broccoli, chopped. I could have used frozen, but I didn't want to take the easy way out. I then sliced the red pepper (definitely not the proper way! Glad Anthony didn't walk in!) and onion (I'm getting a little better at those) and put them in the skillet to cook.

I had to mix a couple of opened boxes of pasta, a ziti and penne. It didn't look like enough with only the one, although looking back it would have been. I wanted to cut the recipe in half, because I didn't want to be eating this all week again. Since I cooked a bit too much pasta though, I think it screwed up the ratios of everything else. Oh well. You can't win them all and I am slowly losing the battle with pasta. The rest of the recipe was easy enough, slicing artichokes wasn't a big deal and chopping olives takes awhile, but was doable. I did have to substitute red wine vinegar for sherry vinegar since I didn't have that. In another recipe I cooked recently you could substitute one for the other, so I assume that's common, but I don't really know.

After all the cooking is done everything gets mixed together. The pasta dish looked like the picture to me and I cooked everything right, but where the heck was the flavor. I found it really bland. We put some Romano cheese on it, but I don't even think that helped much. Hmm...peculiar.

Final Product :

My thoughts: I would add some spices or more Italian herbs to this dish. It needs something. I was even thinking maybe balsamic vinegar instead of red wine vinegar. I'm not going to rush to try this again, but if I can't come up with enough meals one week I might make this and tweek it.

Totals: 10 minutes prep, 15 minutes cooking time, 2 pots, 1 skillet, 1 steamer basket

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This recipe is from Cook's Encyclopedia of 30-Minute Cooking.

Pasta Ponza

Day 5-I was actually really happy to cook last night. I couldn't wait to get started. There were two reasons for my joy, this recipe was super easy and I was trying to put off cleaning the house for as long as possible. This recipe has cherry tomatoes (both yellow and red), capers, olive oil, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, Romano cheese, and ziti

Sadly when picking this recipe I did not take into account the fact that Anthony doesn't really care for two of the ingredients, cherry tomatoes and capers. Since they were pretty essential ingredients, I had a feeling we would not be eating this meal again. The recipe was doomed from the start.

I cut the recipe in half time including the pasta. I'm not making that mistake again, but I did forget to cut the amount of capers in half (oops!). After cutting the tomatoes, you mix them with the capers, olive oil, salt and pepper. Then you sprinkle the breadcrumbs on top and bake for 30 minutes. From the start it just didn't look right to me. I moved on and cooked the pasta; we had to eat!

Once everything was done, you mix the pasta, tomatoes and cheese together. It did not work out. The breadcrumbs were wet lumps. Nothing like what the picture showed. Anthony wanted to know what happened. I told him that I followed the directions exactly, he didn't really believe me. I'm telling all of you that I really DID follow the directions, the only thing I messed up was adding too many capers.

Final Product (not very attractive):

I won't be making this recipe again. It didn't taste horrible, but since Anthony doesn't even like some of the most important ingredients I'm not going to bother trying it again. Oh and it turns out, I don't really like capers either. Oh well, you can't like everything.

Totals: 10 minutes prep, 30 minutes cooking, 1 pot, 1 glass baking dish

Pasta Ponza Recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/pasta-ponza-recipe/index.html