I’m not that great of a cook. I’m not terrible, either, but I find cooking to be very stressful, mainly because I have difficulty getting the timing of multi-course meals down correctly; I seem to never manage to get things all heated up at the same time in order to serve a meal.
I’m not a fan of cooking, or of doing dishes because they were my “chores” as a kid, and I always resented the fact that everyone else in my family got to see prime-time TV shows that I missed while I was cleaning up after the family dinner. My mom used to say that I had to learn to cook because I’d have a husband and kids to cook for someday, whereas my brothers needed to know how to mow the lawn. Heh. Yeah, right.
But I have been, since I’m home, doing some cooking and baking. It’s much less stressful to do when you’re at home all day, rather than racing home after work and then trying to figure out what to fix. Usually I’m so tired after work that I’d rather eat ravioli out of a can.
I made my mom’s peanut butter cookies the other day, which came out pretty well despite the fact that I had to make some substitutions because I didn’t have all the ingredients. I made a low-carb version of banana bread from a mix (which was TERRIBLE) and today I whipped up a batch of banana bread from scratch, my mom’s recipe. I’m anticipating it will be better, because my mom’s was always excellent. I used Splenda instead of sugar, so I hope that will turn out okay. The other day for book club I made some brownies from a mix, and the family favorite appetizer of cut-up sweet pickles, wrapped in cream cheese and corned beef.
Stephanie got me the ingredients for blonde brownies, and I’m also planning on whipping up another family favorite, lasagna after we go on a shopping excursion. I’ve been making some baked chicken breast entrees with various marinades, I cooked white rice without getting it clumpy, and the other day I made a really excellent chicken casserole from a campbell’s soup mixed with chicken and cut up tortillas. Very tasty. I’m becoming a regular little Bree Van De Kamp.