Adventures In Cooking, Part 1

Blogging recipes is probably one of the hardest things. First, I am a baker. It’s much more relaxing and comes a lot easier to me than cooking. When I cook, I do not have everything organized or ready to go. For instance, the other night I made Spinach Artichoke Pasta and as I started making it, I was like “Crap! I have to mince the garlic” Then I would follow a couple steps and “Crap! I have to grate the cheese!” Running all over my kitchen like a chicken with its head cut off.

I do have to say, I’ve had some fairly successful attempts at cooking. Here are some of the recipes I’ve tried from Pinterest and my thoughts about them (click the picture to go to recipe):

One Pot Pasta – This was SO good and SO easy! Throw everything in a pot and you’ve got dinner! It definitely is a twist on pasta and just as easy as heating up pasta and red sauce. According to the picture, the pasta is supposed to soak up the liquid, mine did not. So I just fished the pasta out with tongs – still good.

Spaghetti with Garlic and Red Pepper – This was VERY garlicy. I could not get the garlic out of my mouth after I ate it. I probably wouldn’t make this again because of that. But it was easy and different than regular pasta.

Broccoli Cheddar Soup – This was good. I didn’t feel as insane making this as I did some other meals. This recipe calls for some weird spices which I didn’t add (nutmeg and cardamon) and it was still really good.  I also used the Colby Jack not the Velveeta alternative. And I did not use hot sauce. Next time I make this, I’ll probably use an extra sharp cheddar so it has a little more flavor.

Spinach Artichoke Pasta – The process of making this was chaotic. And to anyone who decides to make it – make sure you have everything measure/prepared BEFORE making it! Maybe that’s common knowledge but to anyone who is new at cooking like me…there ya go.

Parmesan Garlic Baked Fries – These were reallly goooood! They didn’t all turn out AS crunchy as I would’ve liked but they were still really good.  The only prep is soaking the slices of potato before baking them. It felt like I couldn’t really mess these up. Tasty little guys!

*All the recipes I share will be chicken free – since Joel is allergic. I replace all chicken broth with vegetable broth.

Food For Two

One of the biggest challenges after getting married is grocery shopping. I have figured out a few things that last several months.

1. Bread products spoil.

2. Vegetables spoil.

3. Fruits spoil.

4. Pretty much everything spoils before we can eat it.

Joel and I don’t spend a whole lot of time eating at home. We are often with friends or family and can last nearly 3 weeks before going grocery shopping. So I’ve learned a few tricks to make food last:

1. The FREEZER is my best friend. Anything I can buy frozen or cook and freeze will give me the most flexibility.  Since a lot of food is sold for more than 2 people, you can cook food then stick it in the freezer to use later. We freeze our bread because we can’t go through it fast enough before it molds.  By freezing it (vs. refrigerating it), it will keep the soft texture when it defrosts which is awesome.

2. Dry goods. These things are great to keep handy. Minute Rice or quinoa is a great side to any dish – plus there are a lot of fun recipes on Pinterest!

3. Canned/Jarred food –  I don’t buy a lot of canned goods but there are some nice things to have on handy – tomato sauce, beans, jars of spaghetti sauce, vegetable broth, etc. (I have great recipes with these items I will share later).

Grocery shopping and keeping a full pantry can be very frustrating at first. It took a lot of adjustment to figure out what we eat, what we don’t eat, what we go through quickly and what we go through slowly.

I would love to hear some other advice on food for two! Leave your advice in a comment! 🙂