Breaktime Cooking!

So, I (quasi-re)discovered something this break: I love to cook!

I always love the IDEA of cooking, and I had grand aspirations for our apartment's kitchen. But limited time, funds, and confidence has resulted in my main uses of the stove/oven being contained to Campbell's or just-add-eggs cookie mixes (which, I must say, have still been quite satisfactory. And have been known to persuade several would-be studiers out of their apartments at the wee hours of the night...).

However, the first week of break it occurred to me that I, 1) didn't have homework or class and 2) wasn't on a meal plan, ie no guilt over not just going to Saga and eating for free. So when I happened upon a delicious-sounding recipe on one of my favorite blogs right when I was getting hungry, I decided I was going to go for it.

And that night this SUPER GREAT thing happened, where, while enjoying delicious Cheddar-Bacon Corn Chowder together (thanks Megan!) my mother and I made the happy connection that... *She LOOVVESSS to have people cook for her. *I love to cook, but don't have the financial resources to do very much of it. *She's happy to financially back my potential disa- I mean... culinary experiments if she gets a (possibility of a) good meal out of it. Holler! I love my mom.

So, I've been excitedly looking up recipes and trying things out. Some have been delicious and some have been... not. Mostly those have been my fault (did YOU know "simmer" doesn't mean the same thing as "boil"? Also, reading the WHOLE recipe before you start turns out to be kind of important. You might notice things like, "Defrost for eight hours before basting". Whoops.)

But, something about cooking from scratch is like... really, really fun. And relaxing. And the food tastes better than frozen mixes. And I feel like the time together with loved ones eating it is more exciting and appreciative and fun too. So basically, it's been great. AND... I feel like (hopefullyyy...?!!) now that I've tried some recipes out I'll have more confidence to actually make some easy-but-good real meals at school. At least on Sundays. Who wants to come over for dinner?

Here are our favorites so far:

Cheddar-Topped Corn Chowder- I absolutely LOVED this. It's a perfect winter meal- the combination of bacon and corn was great. I am a corn fiend so I think next time I might add another 1/2-1 cup. I accidentally only used one leek, because I didn't know what they look like so I thought one was two. Yeah. And then I burned it. Oops. BUT, it was still really good. I am a texture person and I thought the consistency was just right... you puree two cups of it and mix it in with the rest. And then you crumble bacon and grate cheese on top. Filling and tasty and great.

Fun Salad- I was trying to recreate the excellent one Heather made for Laura's birthday, which consisted of spinach leaves, strawberries, maple-glazed walnuts, and rotisserie chicken. However, two grocery stores were out of strawberries and I couldn't find the same kind of nuts (which was a bummer, cause those things were FANTASTICCC). But, here's what I ended up with:

1 bag spinach leaves

1 carton blueberries

1 carton blackberries

1/2 a package of (plain) glazed walnuts

1/2 a package of pecan-pie glazed (?) pecans (THESE WERE SO GOOD. Safeway.)

Almost a whole roasted chicken, pulled apart.

Um. So. Good. I thought I could have done without the blackberries... they're so expensive and the blueberries accomplished just as much. The chicken made it a full meal, and spinach is good for you, and I had mine with poppyseed dressing. I realize it would probably be healthier without the glaze on the nuts but... I don't care. It melts off a little bit and is delicious. Next time I'll probably just go for a whole bag of the pecans, I liked them better.

Cheesy Potato Soup- My mom liked this even better than the chowder. I didn't, but still thought it was great. The fun thing with this recipe is you can use it as a base and then add pretty much anything you want- I added one chopped sweet onion and three slices crumbled bacon. I also subbed half and half for the cream to make it a little bit healthier, it was still really creamy. I think next time I'll add even more bacon, and maybe corn (yay for corn). The au gratin mix was good, the purist in me (ha) wants to just look up the ingredients and do it all from scratch. But overall this was easy and very filling, and it would be really easy to personalize for a group too (everyone could add what they wanted)- I'll def be making it for any roommates who want some.

Salmon Bake with Pecan-Crusted Coating- This wasn't anyone's favorite, but that could be due to a variety of factors... we ate it after the potato soup, so we were pretty full. This also would be the aforementioned Defrosting Incident- we managed to pull it off with the microwave, but the salmon was a weird texture. It was definitely still good, though, and I think it might just be a matter of personal taste- if you like your meats sweet and/or are a big mustard person, this would be great (the sauce is one part butter, one part honey, and one part dijon).

So. Yay for cooking. And trying new recipes. I'm really excited to try out some of the recipes in my Mennonite cookbook (that I haven't used yet)... they look delicious and are globally-friendly, inexpensive, and healthy. Yum.