Week 39 - Monkey Brains
For those of you who have been keeping up with the Cooking Goal I set for myself this year, last week marked the end of the journey. I set out at the beginning of this year to wean myself off of the convenience of frozen, pre-packaged and “just add boiling water” foods. College was behind me, and it was time to grow into a mature culinary expert. I figured that with 52 weeks in a year, I could find time each week to make a new recipe and add to my repertoire. After adjusting the goal to make 52 recipes this year, I pushed onward to the finish line.
When I started cooking, I quickly realized that I was under-equipped for the task. And yet, it was a little bit fun trying to “MacGuyver” together solutions in the middle of preparing a recipe. Needless to say, the bi-weekly “20% off one item” coupon from Bed, Bath & Beyond that arrived in the mail was used almost immediately each time it arrived. But as I progressed, I found that I reached a point where I was anticipating what I would need. Or, in the case of the KitchenAid standing mixer, something that I thought would be really cool to have.
An unintended benefit of cooking ended up being the dinner parties. When I found that most recipes made 8 servings, and I really didn’t want to eat something for 8 straight days, the solution became obvious. I’ve always felt that food is the great uniting medium. There’s nothing better than gathering around the kitchen table with some home cooked meal and just talking. Talking without our mouths full of food, that is. Through inviting people over to my apartment for dinner, I really got a chance to know them better than I already did. I’m OK at large social functions, but I find that the intimate, small group get-togethers are far more meaningful when everyone isn’t trying to socialize with everyone else.
Week 13 - New York Cheesecake
Then it happened. I started getting really ambitious. About 13 weeks in, I found a spring-form pan at a local thrift store. I thought to myself, “Hey, a spring-form pan! I know what I can make with that!” And that’s when the New York Cheesecake appeared. By that time, I had figured out that cooking wasn’t anything more difficult than civil engineering. I mean, you start with your raw building materials; process them through cutting, heating and mixing; form the materials together; and bake for 30 minutes at 350°. Voila! Instant building . . . I mean dinner. I figured that with some of the recipes, I wouldn’t know how difficult they were until I tried making them for myself. Surprisingly enough, I think every complicated recipe I made ended up turning out. The irony is that some of the simplest recipes (like cookies and Jell-O) were complete failures. Now that I have found myself capable of these complex culinary creations, they’ve lost some of their mysticism. I always thought, “Oh, that’s such a difficult recipe, I could never make something like that.” And then I did. Of course, one wonders if the difficult recipes are worth it, but when you take the first bite and your only reaction is to sigh in ecstasy, you know it was all worth it.
Of the 52 things that I made this year (well . . . 53, but those chocolate chip cookies were after I made the final recipe), I found that they fell into two distinct categories: main dishes and desserts. There were a few that didn’t fit in those categories, but they were in the minority. I think the reason for this dichotomy of recipes was due to the fact that I usually had small groups of people eating the finished product. If I was cooking for a bigger crowd, or making more elaborate, multi-course meals, I probably would have delved into the side dishes and vegetables, but as it was, I stuck to the important stuff. I also found that I ended up making more recipes from the family cookbook, than from the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook. I figured that if I had eaten it before, I knew how it should turn out, and thus would be able to tell if I succeeded or failed with a recipe. And yet, the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook was useful to learn some of the tricks and techniques to make recipes better.
Week 33 - Baked Italian
Probably my proudest moments of the year, with the exceptions of successfully pulling off recipes like New York Cheesecake, Harvest Pie, and Chicken Cordon Bleu, was the fact that I started making my own recipes. Well, more accurately, my own variations on recipes. About 2/3 of my way through the goal, I realized something. Some of the recipes I made ended up being very similar to each other. These ended up contributing to the two “fusion recipes” which were recipes that I had combined from two similar recipes. The greatest success of the fusion recipes was my Baked Italian. It took the greatest attributes of both recipes and fused them together in one ultimate dish. Now, Pork Chops and Texas Potatoes still needs a little work, but I think that I have a good baseline to develop from.
OK, now it’s time for the mushy, gooey part. No, not the undercooked chocolate cake. With as much time as I spent in the kitchen this year, and the chances I had to create social gatherings, as well as participate in them with my food, I began to do some thinking. What makes a meal “home cooked”? Is it merely a meal that isn’t store-bought? Is it a meal that could be classified as “comfort food”? Is it a warm meal? I felt that none of those questions gave a good sense of what “home cooked” really meant. I think this is one of those transitions that silently take place as we grow older.
When you’re growing up, you’ve always got mom’s cooking, and it’s that cooking that you would classify as “home cooking”. And yet, when does your own cooking become “home cooking”? Does it reach that stage when you’re married? When you have kids of your own? When they deem your cooking as “home cooking?” After much thought on the subject, I think I may have arrived at an answer: “home cooking” is food that is lovingly prepared that you share with those whom you love. With the rushed society that we live in today, wouldn’t an occasional home cooked meal help relieve the stress of our lives? How often do we go about the process of living, without letting those who we really care about know how we feel about them? The dinner may be burnt, or the dessert a sloppy mess, but with love, the true meaning of the meal gets across.
Week 52 - Chicken Cordon Bleu
All right, that’s enough philosophizing for now. Below is a list of the recipes that I made this year. After the name of each recipe, there are two markings. Within the brackets [], is which cookbook I made the recipe from: W = The Weilert Family Cookbook, 2nd Edition / A = The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook / F= Fusion recipe / X = No cookbook was used. In parentheses () is the type of the recipe that I cooked: M = Main Dish / D = Dessert / B= Breakfast / O = Other (these are the side dishes, and other recipes I couldn’t easily categorize).
1. Quick Tomato Sauce [A] (M)
2. Bavarian Potato Chowder [W] (M)
3. Zucchini Garden Chowder [W] (M)
4. Creamy Stovetop Mac ‘n’ Cheese [A] (M)
5. Cheese Omelet [A] (B)
6. Italian Sausage Soup [W] (M)
7. Chicken Pizzaiola [A] (M)
8. Banana Bread [A] (O)
9. Scrambled Eggs [A] (B)
10. Chocolate Dream Dessert [W] (D)
11. Sugar Cookies [A] (D)
12. Casserole Italian [W] (M)
13. New York Cheesecake [A] (D)
14. Crispy Chicken Parmesan [A] (M)
15. Bavarian Apple Torte [W] (D)
16. Pork Chops & Potatoes [W] (M)
17. Kuchen [W] (B)
18. Chicken Enchiladas [W] (M)
19. Potluck Pan Rolls [W] (O)
20. Lasagna Casserole [W] (M)
21. Texas Potatoes [W] (O)
22. Hungarian Goulash [W] (M)
23. Emergency Chocolate Cake [A] (D)
24. Lemonade Drop Cookies [W] (D)
25. Fiesta Casserole [A] (M)
26. Fried Eggs [A] (B)
27. Baked Ziti with Tomatoes and Mozzarella [A] (M)
28. Cherry Cheese Packet [W] (B)
29. Deviled Steak Cubes [X] (M)
30. Country Apple Cranberry Dessert [W] (D)
31. Chocolate Sheet Cake [W] (D)
32. Strawberry and Cream Squares [W] (D)
33. Baked Italian [F] (M)
34. Baked Macaroni and Cheese [A] (M)
35. French Toast Casserole [W] (B)
36. Lemon Bars [W] (D)
37. Beef Tortilla Casserole [A] (M)
38. Chicken and Rice Casserole [X] (M)
39. Monkey Brains [W] (D)
40. All American Meatloaf [A] (M)
41. One Dish Breakfast [W] (B)
42. Pork Chops & Texas Potatoes [F] (M)
43. Rhubarb Cobbler [W] (D)
44. Chili [X] (M)
45. Tenderloin Parmigana [W] (M)
46. Easy Day Casserole [X] (M)
47. Taco Soup [X] (M)
48. Cranberry Cake [W] (D)
49. Harvest Pie [W] (D)
50. “Great Pumpkin” Cookies [W] (D)
51. Cinnamon Apple Salad [W] (O)
52. Chicken Cordon Bleu [A] (M)
So, after a year’s worth of cooking, I’ve met my goal. A reasonable goal with a reasonable challenge. I’ve learned a lot, not only about cooking and baking, but about myself as well. I’ve found a few recipes that I’ve already come to love and have made multiple times (Fiesta Casserole, Taco Soup, Easy Day Casserole, etc.). There’s nothing more to say at this point but, Bon Apetit!
