Fact: Planning a wedding is more work than you think. Unless you've planned a wedding, in which case you know what I mean, girl!?!
Fact: When your husband is in nursing school you have a LOT of extra time!
Therefore: I am a girl with one BIG PROJECT done and ready to take on another adventure!
I have come to the following conclusion about learning to cook: It happens in phases. I started out a little over a year ago afraid of the kitchen... Even a simple chocolate mousse was a project for me, involving its own trip to the grocery store and intense concentration! The thought of that now is so silly! Item by item I am starting to understand why Mom says "Why would you buy that? It's so easy to cook!"
I am in a completely different place now than I was when I started. I am now pretty comfortable in the kitchen. I would by no means say I'm highly-skilled, and I still cut myself, burn myself, burn the foods, and make something straight up nasty on a pretty regular basis!! Although I have learned that some of these kitchen mishaps keep happening even when you are a trained chef, and that I can make good things most of the time!!
Shane and I have gone a while without a fully store-bought, packaged meal. Even if it's just something simple and partially packaged (like tonight: fettucini alfredo and a Central Market salad kit) we have been eating so much better! Oh yeah, and listen to that--fettucini alfredo is now "simple" to me (warm butter and cream over low heat, add parmesan, salt and pepper and stir until cheese is melted) and I tend to keep the ingredients around (whole wheat pasta, whipping cream, parmesan cheese, salt and a pepper mill)!!! I never thought I would be saying this!
About the phases: Now that total fear of the kitchen and domestic ineptitude isn't the issue, I am struggling with meal planning. I tend to pick a few recipes and cook them all in the beginning of the week, leaving us out of food by Thursday OR pick a few recipes and wait until Thursday to cook them, leaving us with rotten produce :(. I want to work on this! If it's hard for me now, I will flunk it if we have kids!
Now... What's next for The Blog Formerly Known as Abby/Betty (now know as "Abby Makes a Huge Mess and..." because I do!)?? I'm going to call this phase Homemaking 201: Intermediate Domestic Skills. The curriculum is as follows:
1. Wilton cake decorating classes!! Not exactly cooking, I know, but I am having to bake my unadorned cookies, cupcakes, and cakes to bring to class!! My kids are going to have awesome birthday cakes like I did.
2. Central Market cooking classes!! In which I will: address my fear of cooking fish, learn knife skills, and learn about grilling, among other things :)
3. Work on weekly meal planning. I am considering trying this four week recipe plan from Real Simple. The convenience of it is really appealing, and they have one that was published in October as well as the one in the link, which seems a little more summery. The drawbacks are the amount of food (I would have to half the recipes/not make them all/make sure it all made good lunch leftovers... which would undo some of the convenience) and some of the ingredients are scary! I have NEVER cooked fish (outside of the frozen fried filets from the Gorton's fisherman) and I am terrified of shrimp because it once gave me awful food poisoning! Thoughts??
I've got my work (fun!!) cut out for me! :D
Man! I struggle with the planning too! I have always known my way around the kitchen and can do stuff, and if I don't know, I am not afraid of looking it up and trying it out. But getting the right stuff in the right amount so that we don't run out too quickly or it doesn't end up going rotten (I hate it when it happens) is really hard.
ReplyDeleteThe best schedule that I have ever held has been to go grocery shopping Monday (I hate being stuck in the grocery store during the weekend, it's so crowded!) and Thursday. That way I always have fresh groceries to make stuff with and they won't go bad.
Doing that though, takes a lot of time.
So what I usually end up doing is make foods that I can freeze (stews/lasagna) in batches, and then keep a steady supply of side dish ingredients (i.e. salad stuff, yogurt, etc) and just heat it up and make fresh rice/make stuff that's quick, but ingredients don't go bad soon.
Let me know if you come up with efficient schemes!