I think I am in another food rut. Nothing sounds good and I don’t have the energy to cook anything new. Then, when I actually do cook something new, I think of all sorts of ways to change it or make it better. Plus, when we do eat out, or I eat a quick frozen dinner, I get sad and just want to make it better. It’s becoming a problem, although maybe a good problem to have, I guess.
I’m wondering if this cookbook challenge is pushing me in another direction, a new and slightly scary one. Maybe it’s time for me to start thinking about making up my own recipes… Real recipes, not just thrown together ones.
As I’m writing this, we are watching Masterchef, and the Husband is pointing out that the next audition cycle is “coming to a city near you!” (Chicago on September 9 is the next one.) He’s threatening to apply for me and bring me Mystery Boxes to get me ready for auditions… I may have created a monster…
While I’m not quite ready for Masterchef yet, I could maybe handle trying to create a few of my own recipes.
I did make spaghetti and bagel pizzas this week that were my own recipes. These will not win me Masterchef, but did make for tasty dinners.
1- Spaghetti, recipe by me.
The spaghetti had tons of fresh basil in it, so had a little bit of a different flavor. I had run out of garlic, so it just had garlic powder. It cooked in the crockpot for about 10 hours. The Husband’s coworkers are in awe of my cook time for spaghetti sauce, apparently. It is a long time, but if it cooks for under 4 hours, it isn’t as good. It still doesn’t taste as good as my Dad’s recipe either.
Yes, the pasta is mixed shapes. I thought I had more spaghetti and it turned out I had double the fettuccini, not spaghetti.
2- Fettuccini Alfredo with mushrooms from the Pasta book. This was not a new recipe, but I did add mushrooms. (We didn’t have these back to back, there were a few days in between.) I spaced on pictures, we were too hungry.
3- Bagel Pizzas, recipe by me.
The Husband laughed at me when I was talking about making these because apparently they started simple and then sounded extra fancy when I had finished what was going to be on them. They really aren’t fancy at all. I made homemade pizza sauce with dried oregano, parsley, basil, and garlic and onion powders. I toasted the bagel before adding the sauce and it made it much nicer. I added a slice of mozzarella cheese, mushrooms and ham, and then another slice of cheese on top. They were baked for about 10 minutes at 350.
4- Herb Chicken Meal from Freezer Meals by Julianna Sweeney.
It looks terrible, but was actually pretty flavorful. We used boneless, skinless leg quarters and baked it for about 50 minutes, as it was still slightly frozen. Salad and garlic bread completed the meal. I will make this again, it was good.
Oh gosh… Now the Husband has my Masterchef plan of attack all worked out, from knife skill drills, to dinner parties where other people can eat the fish that neither of us like, to what we’ll do after I win.
If he starts telling all of you to send me weird food items, don’t listen! 🙂
For now, I think I’ll stick to trying some new ways to prepare foods and maybe try a few things out on my own. I still need to meal plan for the week too. My back is currently acting up very badly, so resting with an ice pack and recipes seems like just the thing to do.
Fancy is being bratty and demanding pets and rope tugs, which the Husband has provided. This has been my view during the week when she decides I’m done on the computer for the night.
It is National Dog Day though, so I suppose we can spoil her a bit. 🙂 Who can resist puppy snuggles, after all?
