Thursday, April 16, 2015

A New Obsession

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that when I learned to knit a few years ago, I became completely and totally obsessed with it.  When I wasn’t knitting, I wished I was knitting, or I was planning what I would knit, or I was shopping for yarn with which to knit.  I still often analyze knitwear on folks I come into contact with (or just randomly see in public).  Is it handknit?  What stitch pattern is that and could I duplicate it?  I often resent my day job because it keeps me from knitting.  My family and friends will tell you, I’m a knit nut. Being so dedicated to spending every moment I could with my sticks and string, I didn’t think there was room in my life for another obsession.  

I was wrong.






Here’s the thing:  The Husband is a very picky eater.  He will protest when he sees this and he will deny it to his last breath.  Do not believe him.  I’m here to tell you that he is most certainly picky.  We’ve been married nearly 16 years now and recently, for no particular reason (hormones), I became very weary of cooking the same few things he seemed to like.  In fact, I can’t explain it (hormones) but I began to get really, really grumpy about cooking anything because I was bored, he was bored, it was all boring.  BOR-ING.

One day, while shopping for yarn doing important online research for my craft, I happened to open up my hardly-used Pinterest application on my tablet.  On the home screen, I caught a fleeting look at a pin for a baked bean recipe.  The picture looked good enough to eat.  I visited the web site and found a great food blog which I’ve mentioned here before (www.southyourmouth.com).  I started poking around some other recipes on the blog.  I pinned them.  The holidays were coming.  I decided to try a couple of the pinned recipes.  They were fabulous.

So it began.  

Suddenly, I was looking for Pinterest recipes once a week.  Then once a day.  I began to make menus for the week ahead.  I actually planned stuff.  I made meals that were not just passable, but were actually pretty doggone good.  

I’ve tried some new things, like this gnocchi:

Pretty good

The recipe called for frying it instead of boiling it.  I used this in a cheesy dish with sausage which was pretty good.  The gnocchi was edible and next time will be better since I’ll have an idea of what I’m supposed to do.

There have been some epic fails like this honey garlic chicken that I cooked in the crock pot, but apparently halving the recipe is not a good idea when it’s gonna sit in a slow cooker all day with no one around to stir it and monitor it’s progress.  This got tossed completely.

Not so hot

And there have been some gleaming successes:

Fabulous!

This salmon dish was fabulous - even The Husband who really doesn’t care for salmon ate it up.  It would look even better if I’d had a better way to dress it with the yummy Sriracha cream sauce you see kind of slathered on top.

I've managed to impress myself.  I've moved from jarred minced garlic and garlic powder to fresh garlic, from ground ginger to fresh grated ginger, from prepackaged grated Parmesan to grating a chunk of real Parmesan Reggiano.  Just goes to show, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.

And so I’m hooked.  The real struggle is splitting my time between planning and cooking, and knitting.  That darned day job still gets in the way…

If you’d like to see what I’m up to on Pinterest, you can find me here.


Lisa

4 comments:

  1. It sounds like you're really loving it! A tip for grating ginger: grate it from frozen. It's much easier!

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  2. I love your passion, you totally sound hooked, and it all sounds delcious! To go with the tip on grating ginger, try peeling it with a teaspoon, its crazy easy and you only lose the skin! :D

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    Replies
    1. A teaspoon! I'd have never thought of that. I'll try it!

      Delete

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