Food For Thought

I love to cook. As far back as I can remember, I loved being in the kitchen. Now that I cook 3 meals a day, seven days a week, food is almost always on my mind. As I've been checking out a few food blogs lately, I thought I'd post about food. Here's a mini history of my cooking background:

As a baby, I burned my hand on the oven door while my dad was making granola. I can only assume that I was interested in his granola making technique and wanted to check it out.

My favorite toy as a child was my kitchen set. My sister Alison and I got it for Christmas when I was 6 or 7, and each successive birthday or Christmas for the next few years I got a new addition to the set—a hand mixer, a toaster oven, a dish drainer, etc.

As a rather small child, my sister Alison and I would cook together. Some of our most memorable attempts:

-The double batch of no-bake cookies in which we substituted frosted flakes for the oats (NOT a successful substitution. No one in the family would eat them, and we ended up giving them to Alison’s friend Missy).

-The dip in which we substituted Miracle Whip for mayo (again, not recommended).

-The fire jolly rancher drink—we dissolved our fire jolly ranchers in water to “cool them down” because they were too hot for our little mouths (this wasn’t really an attempt at cooking, we just wanted to quench the fire jolly ranchers; a memorable experience nonetheless).

By third grade I was making cookies, cakes, and brownies entirely on my own. I loved to bake, and I still do. My love of baking has spilled over into other areas of food preparation and my adult taste buds are a lot more willing to try new things than my little child buds were, so I love to try all kinds of recipes with new ingredients.

A few of my new favorites:

-Pecans: I absolutely love nuts, and pecans are some of my favorites. I love to have them toasted in salads, baked into baked goods, or sprinkled into rice dishes.

-Cilantro: where have you been all of my life? I don’t think I had ever even heard of cilantro until I was in high school, but I don’t know how I could live without it now. I use it in salads, Mexican dishes, salsas, chicken, etc.

-Feta cheese: a recent obsession, although I don’t buy it much or use it as much as I would like. I like it best in spinach salad and in a Greek tomato chickpea salad I’ve discovered.

-Asparagus: my new favorite vegetable (almost, actually—carrots are still my #1). I love it grilled, broiled, or steamed; plain or seasoned. It is a wonder how much I love green vegetables considering as a child my idea of eating my veggies was having a few bites of corn.

-Grape tomatoes: the only way I’ll eat just plain raw tomatoes. I love the huge boxes they sell at Sam’s Club—they don’t last long! If you haven’t tried them, you should. While I do love them plain, they are also awesome in salads and Mexican dishes.

-My hand blender: okay, this isn’t a food, but I use it almost every day for various tasks such as making soups, whipping cream, making smoothies, chopping nuts, and blending salad dressings. How did I ever survive in the kitchen without it?

Kind of an out of the blue post, but lets you know a little more about me. I don’t consider myself a great cook by any means, but I’m learning more all of the time, having fun in the kitchen, and keeping my family eating health stuff (although I really do need a break from the kitchen every so often, so if you are a certain someone reading this—you know who you are—a break in the form of eating out or you making dinner once in a while would be greatly appreciated!).

For those who are visual, a picture of one of my creations--a strawberry rhubarb pie I made for my father-in-law's birthday a few years ago. It was my first lattice-top pie, and although it wasn't beautiful, it was delish!