I do not cook. At best, I'd say I make food, meaning I assemble already prepared or mostly prepared items into simple dishes. If anything takes more than an hour ... or half an hour, if I'm being completely honest ... to get to my plate, forget about it. If I do attempt a recipe, it has to have 10 or less ingredients that are easily recognizable and obtainable, and there can't be any complicated steps like searing or braising or god knows what.
I don't fully understand why this is. I guess part of this challenge will be to explore my hang ups and get over them. But in general, I'm busy and I'd rather spend my free time being outdoors with the husband or reading or shopping or playing with my dog or basically anything other than spending hours in the kitchen only to have ruined food or results that I could've gotten for $7.95 at the local diner in half the time.
So why bother trying to cook? I do love home-cooked food. I love the smells coming from the kitchen and the ability to control the ingredients that will be entering my system. I love when friends show up with amazing dishes prepared with love. I marvel at a friend who makes pork tenderloin, and green beans almondine, and scalloped potatoes, all from scratch for her family of four on a Tuesday after working all day at her professional job. I marvel at my husband who loves to cook when he has time and makes me grilled, cedar-planked, butter and wine injected, goodness-encrusted prime rib on my birthday or on a random day because it sounded good. I feel a need to at least try and reciprocate the love. And be a little healthier and find some happiness with food along the way.
So here's my challenge. A good friend made a resolution to make one new recipe per week and I think this is something I could handle. Of course this implies that I make other old recipes the rest of the time, which isn't true, but this is a start. No other rules at this point. Just find a new recipe, go to the grocery store (yikes!), and make the food at some point within a week's time. Double yikes.
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