Adventures in Cooking

Tonight we are supposed to cover more fun historical facts, but we are going to put that blog off for tomorrow. Tonight we are going to cover adventures in cooking. For those of you who know me, I can cook, but I am nothing close to being called an inspired cook. I can follow directions, usually, and the food does come out tasting OK...but...you know, it is not visually stimulating.

I don't know what has gotten into me, but lately, I have had these strange cravings to cook and have been getting braver in my cooking adventures. I have been trying new recipes, which is highly unusual for me (and dangerous). I have several dishes that I have gotten pretty good at cooking, but you can count the number of dishes I do well on one hand... So, in some strange twist of fate, I have been breaking out the cookbook and wandering into the unknown world of cooking.

My latest phase has been cooking with a pressure cooker. Since using an oven in the summer is insanity, and there really is no other way to cook whole chickens or roasts (unless you use a crock pot - which I have, but again, I am good at pot roast...you get tired of that pretty quickly). I have had this pressure cooker for over 15 years and have probably used it about 3 or 4 times prior to now. The reason I never considered using the pressure cooker much is due to my earliest recollection of pressure cooking was when my mother tried to do something with the cooker and the whole thing exploded all over the ceiling. I think she also burned herself pretty good.

For some strange reason about 15 years ago, I saw this really cool pressure cooker at a Home and Garden show. They showed me how safe it was to use and how hard it was for anyone to burn themselves, and how much healthier it is to cook with a pressure cooker, so I bought it. It came with a cookbook which I needed, so I happily went home and tried my first meal with the pressure cooker. I didn't really burn the chicken, but I did almost puree the chicken. I didn't get my timing right and seriously overcooked the bird. The good news was that you could take all the bones out and then had the meat left in the pot. It was funny, but embarrassing, because it looked like mush when served on plates...especially since it wasn't supposed to be a soup.

I was teased so badly about that mess, that it took me a while to screw up the courage to try again. This time I cooked chicken and rice. Great idea, except this time I scorched the rice and the house stank for days. The food tasted OK, if you avoided the scorched stuff... we won't even talk about how hard it is to clean the bottom of a scorched pot. So, back on the shelf the pressure cooker went until I got brave again. Several years later, I tried to broast a chicken. This time, again I seriously overcooked the chicken. It tasted great, but you couldn't get the whole bird out of the pot...

This last month I have been playing with the pressure cooker yet again. I have refined my cooking style some more and have managed not to scorch the food, but I still tend to overcook the food. I am getting better, some of the beef roasts I cooked actually came out great. So, tonight, I tried cooking a whole chicken again...bad idea. The bird wasn't scorched, but for some stupid reason, I didn't check to be sure I had the lid of the pressure cooker on properly. It leaked water and steam, so my timing was way off. (for timing a pressure cooker meal, you start the clock when the little jiggler valve starts making noise...if the pressure is leaking out elsewhere, you are late in starting the timer).

By the time I realized that the pressure cooker was leaking pressure, it was too late to start the whole mess over, so I guessed on how much time was left. I should know better, leaving cooking up to inspiration for me is a disaster waiting to happen. So, again, the chicken tasted great, it was just a matter of peeling the chicken off the bottom of the pot and trying to keep it from falling apart as you lifted it from the pot. I was marginally successful. The good news is that the chicken pieces, (for the most part) looked like chicken pieces and some of the bones stayed where they were supposed to go. The bad news is that the bird pretty much self-destructed before I could put it on a plate to serve. Thankfully I did not have guests, but I couldn't stop laughing at the chicken mess I made.

So, if anyone ever comes over and I cook, you can expect good tasting food, but you will probably have to close your eyes to enjoy the food (or I should use a very dimly lit room) so you don't giggle at the mess I made. Now I remember why I don't cook much. The food tastes good, it just doesn't present well... I guess I should practice more to refine my cooking style, but at this late a date... I probably won't get much better. My mother sighs every time I tell her of my latest cooking escapade. She is an excellent cook, and could have been a great chef. Her presentations are great, the food looks and tastes wonderful, and she doesn't even use recipes much. Actually she does use recipes, but she can look at a recipe and tell you what needs to be changed. I can only look at a recipe and follow it. Then I can tell you that it was a stupid recipe to follow because it was so bad.

My mother has taken to sending me recipes, but again, she doesn't really follow them to the letter, so she doesn't understand why my food from the same recipe card doesn't taste the same. She is a natural cook, I am naturally not a cook, but I do keep trying. Perhaps one day I can cook something that not only tastes good but is presentable too. So goes my adventures in cooking. If I am successful in creating both a tasty and presentable dish, I will be the first to take pictures and let you all know.

We won't even talk about my bread hockey pucks.....

If you are looking for an additional income to supplement what you currently have, check out our website for some ideas. It is always a good idea to have more than one source of income, especially in these tough economic times and a home based business is one where you cannot get fired, not matter how bad the economy gets.

Until tomorrow...