Why hello oven. Meet chicken.

I now know what to do with a chicken to treat it right and make it tasty. That sounded kinda dirty. Twenty-two minutes for a small chicken breast in an oven of 350* and bam, yummy chicken goodness with a side of vegetables.

How pretty does that plate look? Any ways to improve and add to a dinner like that, and I'm all ears! Remember, I'm aiming to stay as humanly healthy as possible. My Mrs. Dash bottle is even saltless! (gasp)

Not sure what my next move with chicken should be...BBQ? Buffalo? Is the prep the same, just a different sauce? I'm all ears people- what should I do with chicken next?

If that's not brunch, I don't know what is?

I must admit that I am kicking ass in the egg and vegetable area. I'm thinking of moving away from sauteing and try freezing fresh veggies, marinading and then baking as my one big cooking fan suggested.What's that called though-- casserole? I need a cooking dictionary or else I'm just going to keep on embarrassing myself. Or maybe having a cooking dictionary is the large red flag that you're new to the kitchen.

As far as eggs- well, there's a lot more to do. The more natural move is probably omelettes though. Any suggestions or tips?

I know vegetables are the basic ingredient, but what about a good cheese to add in? Also, do you think my scrambled egg plating skills need a tad bit of work. No need to answer that...I know the answer.

*** I just found this egg recipe on CCC and am going to try it ASAP this weekend!! http://www.clickclickculinary.com/2011/01/souffle-omelette.html

Pie Fail!

Maybe I ventured into the world of bake goods too soon or maybe I just don't understand the power of butter yet. But in either case, this crumb pie was unserveable. Of course, I made my roommate try some and I had a slice. But I couldn't do too much with it after that. I followed the instructions exactly but I got a little lost on how to mix in the butter and get to that gooey yet smooth consistency to create the crust and top of the pie.

This area (from recipe above) is where I got lost: pastry cutter to cut in the butter until it resembles a course crumbly mixture.

All I did was really chop up, kinda cold butter and mix it in. But it was just chunk in different parts and didn't fully mix. Maybe microwaving would've helped.

Any suggestions on how to fix this for another go around would be great!

Does anyone know any simple recipes that use the same ingredients as this pie so I can try going in another direction?

Egg win! Egg in a Basket!

Didn't know this little guy existed until I saw it in the infamous cook book. Amazingly easy and good and quick. Toasty bread and runny middle. Enough said!

I cut a hole in a piece of whole wheat bread, turned it over in a pan a few times with vegetable oil. I waited until both sides were a little browned before dropping an egg in the middle.

I gave each side no more than 2 minutes and then enjoyed!

This beats out scrambled vegetables for sure! (pun intended) I crack myself up!

Scrambled veggies

Don't be in shock but I actually was inspired to try this recipe from (gasp) a cook book that my mother politely reminded me was getting dusty on the shelf. Simple enough and healthy.

I chopped up the rest of my tomatoes, string beans and summer squash and mixed them around with some vegetable oil in a pan. Which I've now confirmed is sautéing. Mystery over! After about five minutes, I added in three eggs that I had already beat together with milk. I let everything sit together for about 90 seconds before scrambling away. Added pepper and no salt, since we know it's evil.

I made some instant raisin oatmeal for the side and walla! A quick and easy brunch for an after the gym work out.

For next time:

1. one packet of oatmeal is plenty for a side.

Egg Identity Crisis

In an attempt to further my cooking, I've delved into an egg exploratory as you know. I'm buying eggs twice a week at this point. I just learned tonight that eggs, though they have an expiration date- don't actually go bad for a looong time. Like weeks to a month apparently. I can now safely buy a dozen eggs at a time or more and not have a panic attack about having to crack them all in three days or less. Win!

I need to work out the timings of my eggs. I could just google and not waste time, but what kind of exploratorian would I be if I did that?

I cracked three eggs in a pan here, and I was aiming for mostly sunny side up but wanted one side a little cooked. So I guess that'd be a soft fried egg? Ugh, I really have no idea. They're all looking and tasting the same to me at this point. So I flipped the egg pancake too many times and they all molded together and cooked too much on each side. I ended up putting the egg slice in toasted whole wheat bread and having it as a late dinner one night last week when I got home from work late.

Notes for next time:

1. google egg, just do it already.

Sorta Subbing

The night before blizzard number 2 of the season I decided to stock up at the grocery store and prep for some meals in. I was apparently one of the last people at Dags cause there was little to nothing left. My attempt to recreate a tasty meatless dish my friend M made me the night before, failed- because I ended up having to sub out most of the ingredients last minute. Instead of broccoli slaw as the pasta cameo, I found tofu spaghetti. The store had no mushrooms or cucumbers, so I got cherry tomatoes, string beans and what I think was incorrectly labeled as summer squash.

The recipe is simple enough- treat the tofu as pasta and bring it to a boil. Not sure if it's called stir fry or sauté when you push chopped up vegetables around in a pan with some veggie oil...but ugh, that's what I did with them. The tomatoes got squishy but everything else got nice and browned.

I drained the 'pasta', added tomato sauce and dumped the vegetables in. Delicious and healthy. Though I don't want to go back to the strung out tofu again. It just didn't do it for me. I got to find the broccoli slaw at the store. I'm guessing it's near the vegetables...?

For next time...

1. ditch the tofu.

2. be patient with the veggies and give them a ton of time to cook.

3. don't use cherry tomatoes, they just get squished by the other vegetables.

Chicken with rice pilaf

I cooked the rest of the skinless, boneless chicken breast tonight. I really need to plan more ahead because I only defrosted/marinated for about 30 minutes before putting the chicken in the pan. And obviously it wasn't fully defrosted at that point. Need more patience clearly. There's got to be a way to not burn the heck outta the chicken too. I think the pan is on too high to start with. If I keep it low to medium, longer I shouldn't have a problem. Hopefully.

I picked up a bag of 90 second microwavable rice pilaf as a side. See I told you I need to work on the whole patience thing. Making real rice for 30 minutes wouldn't hurt me. Should really plan my meals more instead of trying to throw them together. They just end up burnt. Once I get the chicken thing down, I want to venture over to fish. Maybe next time I'll bake the chicken rather then trying to control the stove top. I think my goal will not be to perfect each way to make different meals, but to get 1 good way down that I feel comfortable with. So far, chicken on stove top just isn't working for me.

Notes for next time:

1. keep heat low!

2. find green sides, stay away from the starches!

3. bake chicken, stay away from stove top!

Egg Exploratory

For the last couple days I've been experimenting with eggs. Egg-citing I know! I've mostly been making scrambled or hard boiled. I'm still getting the timing down for the hard boiled egg and they sometimes come out more soft then I want. It seems there's no real way to know when the egg is done until you try cracking the shell. I squish about 3 semi-cooked eggs before getting to 1 good hard one. I think it's about 4-5 minutes on each side.

For brunch today I had 2 whole wheat eggos, a granny smith apple with crunchy peanut butter and of course an egg made a cameo. I'm not sure if I was aiming for a sunny side up egg or a fried egg. Maybe there's no difference. Clearly I need to research this before trying again. Any way, I let the crack egg sit in a medium temp pan for about 3 minutes before flipping it over carefully. I turned it over a minute later and the 'sunny' part of the egg had closed up nicely, keeping the soft yolk in. I flipped a couple more times before taking the heat off.

I hope to get venture to flipping omelets soon!

Chicken breast with squash

Night 1 of my journey to becoming a cook and I've decided to stick with perfecting simple before actually attempting full plates.

The 'recipe' came from my mother via a quick telephone call.

I took one skinless, boneless chicken breast and defrosted it for a few hours. With a thin layer of vegetable oil in a stovetop pan I turned it over every 3-5 minutes. I wasn't expecting so much sizzling and spatting from the oil but I'm hoping that's normal. I added salt and pepper, of course.

I placed pre cut chunks of squash in a pot with about 1 cup of boiling water. I let that sit for about 20 minutes until all the pieces were soft. I drained the pot and then put the soft chunks back inside. I squished the chunks for a few minutes and then added a squirt of maple syrup once the squash was nice and soft.

Notes for next time:

1. measure the amount of water going into the pot-future note, maybe remember to measure everything...always.

2. don't put marinade in the pan with the chicken- I thought I was killing two birds with one stone since I didn't marinade while the chicken was defrosting. But the marinade got all chunky and ended up burning the top layer of the chicken.

3. drain squash more thoroughly- my end plate was a tad more wet then it should've been

Dessert: Skinny Cow's chocolate fudge ice cream cone

Till next time! Eat up!

2011 Goal

With fresh 2011 inspiration from my mother I decided to commit to taking a steady stab at cooking. Learning how to cook has been on my to-do list since I went to boarding school over ten years ago. It's also been on each new year resolution list and bucket list I've ever had. So now it's time to start the work and actually cross it off.

I'm not someone who cooks. I'm someone who says they cook when they can. But really, I heat up leftovers. I love seamlessweb and takeout. It's more of an obsession actually. But I think it's time for that love to be put on the back burner, while I give myself a real shot at cooking as much as possible. I'll be starting with the small and simple of course. But I soon hope to actually be putting real, nice plates together. I'm not making this into some kind of Julie/Julia wanna be sight, but more of a trial and error, 'hey look what I can do' kind of thing.

I hope you enjoy my self-induced task as much as I hope everything tastes good!