Apples, Hot Chocolate, and Rice

Hey! so attached are two pictures: first one is of an apple cut into 8 pieces. i did it myself but...with a knife! no apple cutter thing! i know, very dorky and waste of an email and of your time, but i am very very proud of myself! i cut an apple with a knife!a butcher knife!! the second one is of my first ever hot chocolate cup! it's from a swiss brand, and i got it at the import section, and it has a variety: regular, hot chocolate with marshemellows, and rich chocolate. at the recomendation of the other americna teachers, i started with the marmellow one. it was good! i had to drink it slowly, but that is fine by me, you know i am a slow eater and drinker. i am really excited!!! not exactly cooking, but experiences involving food i am proud of! i also used my rice cooker for the time, and it worked!!it's like magic!rice is so hard for me to cook: either leave too long and it melts together, or take out too soon and it is hard. my machine did it all: i put in equal cups of rice and water, hit the on button, and it did the rest!! it was soooo cool!!! too bad i cant take it with me :(

Practice Makes Confy

A few days ago I wrote a post which I called Peeling The Potatoes Yourself in which I talked about how I made steak and mashed potatoes and found such...great new insight into peeling the potatoes myself. This post is sort of a follow up on that post. The steaks that I made with those mashed potatoes turned out good! I am very proud of how those steaks turned out, and while I am not a professional so I don't know how good it was it was good to me, and I loved eating it! it was not dry and the seasoning I used, an outside smoke flavor sauce, was really good! I loved the way it turned out so much that I have made it twice since then, and each time I make it I get more and more comfortable with it(though I should start using a cooking thermometer). I can't say that they get better and better every time, but I get more comfortable and confidence in my ability to cook it, and I think that matters. in cooking, I am finding that you cannot just try once and that's it. whether you knock it out of the park your first time or you strike out miserably, you have to try again either way. the more times you cook a dish the more comfortable you will be with it and the more comfortable you are the more your confidence grows and the more your confidence grows the more daring and bold you become in experimenting with it, and trying new ways of cooking that dish. sometimes in life, we feel that if we succeed then that's it. we can stop. and we say that if you fail, that's when you try again. but maybe, you try again either way. maybe the trick is to keep going on and on and on, whether you get it right or not.

Peeling The Potatoes Yourself

A few weeks ago, maybe a month or two ago, I had a friends watching friends marathon, since I had never watched the series before and over SBC in Boston got hooked and so bought the entire series package. anyways, a few of my friends came and I also cooked meat loaf and mashed potatoes. anyways, Brent Bailey was one of the friends who came over(which  I find kinda amusing because it seems to me that Brent gets more excited about spending time with me when I am cooking, than when I am not...seriously, I never see him more eager to spend time with me that when my cooking is involved) and when he asked me if there was anything he could do to help, I told him he could help me peel the potatoes. I am not sure whether I ever really thought he would do it, but he did, and he ended up peeling all the potatoes since I had not idea how to use the potatoe peeler I bought and he also helped me mash the potatoes. watching Brent Bailey peeling  and mashing potatoes in my kitchen was definely one of the highlights of my entire time at ACU, but last night I made mashed potatoes and steak(2 thin Ribeyes to be exact)and peeling the potatoes, cutting the potatoes, mashing the potatoes all by myself felt...really good! it was an altogether different feeling doing it all by myself,without Brent Bailey's help. not a better feeling or a worse feeling just a...different feeling. It really felt good to know that having Brent's help was good and fun, but that I could also do it by myself and do just a good a job on my own as with him. it feels good knowing that you can ask for help because you want the help and not because you need the help. cooking can be done either on your own, or with help. and neither way is wrong, but maybe if you are asking for help without learning to do it on your own as well, then maybe that's a problem. maybe its a problem if you want to be married(to a specific person)without also learning to live just a good and beautiful life on your own as you would with someone else. maybe it will feel just as good being in a relationship knowing that you could do just fine and beautiful on your own as with them, just...different ways of living.
Cooking/Life Lesson: on your own or with someone else, but learn to do it on your own so you don't depend on help every time.
and btw, it turned out SOOO good!!! those were steaks was amazing!!!

Not Perfection First Time Around...And That's Okay!

This is my first pie!! I know it looks awful, it does not really look like a pie, but I made it, totally from scratch, by myself. making the filling(which I realized was the filling after I was already into making the crust) and that went fine. then I started making the crust and this is where the...challenge started. making a pie crust may sound easy and simple: make the dough, roll it out, and then put it in the pie dish. easy huh? well...for a first time novice such as myself, not so much. I made the dough, used my new electric mixer(I used it for the filling too and it was awesome!!!it made things so much faster! it was amazing!)and..not good. it was crumbly, and it just kept falling apart. I was supposed to divide the dough into 4 balls, and it was so tough and I tried chilling the 4 balls and when I tried rolling them out...not good. I was sooo frustrated! I was ready to go out to wal mart again and buy the store bought crust. but I REALLY wanted to do this pie from scratch and so, I kept trying. after making a through mess, I threw it(the dough)in the trash and started making the crust from scratch. which I did, being extra careful with the amount of the ingredients and I thought maybe using the mixer was a mistake the first time, since I figured out the dough needed to come together. I guess when it comes to dough, it is better to do it by hand, which is a good cooking lesson for me to learn. it went SO much better the second time around. I did only make one pie, the recipe I was using made two pies, but since I adjusted the serving size, I guess that is to be expected.the crust was not...nice looking at all! it was uneven and shorter in some places than in others, as can be seen in the photo if you look closely. but I did it, not pretty but I did it, and I then put the filling in, didnt even use half of it. again, probably because I did make one pie when the recipe  makes two, but I thought it best to not...push my dough. so I then put foil around the crust, or tried since I didnt really know how to do that, and put it in the oven for 20 minutes, then took out the foil and kept it baking for another 25 minutes. and as you can see, it...looks nothing like a pie. Tate said it looked like Banana Pudding with pork rinds on top(i texted him and Brent a picture and Brent did not even respond. problaly died laughing lol). it's not pretty, it doesn't look the way a pie is supposed to look, it actually looks nothing like a pie, and it problaly wont taste good because I put in 1/2 pound more of ricotta cheese than the recipe called for, but my goal is for this to be etable. now, I just need to find some guys that are brave enough to eat it.
I am so glad that I kept at it, and did not just give up and bought a store bought crust. It may not be anywhere near perfect, but I am so proud of my pie, and I now have a good idea of the steps neccesary to make a pie: the steps and the assembly. I guess one thing that cooking is teaching me is that it doesn't have to be perfect, or even good the first time you try something. you just have to give it a try and keep at it. the second time, it'll be easier because you will have a better idea of what you are doing and the more times you try, the better it'll get. and someday, I will make a pie that looks like a pie. but for now, I LOOVE this pie because it is my first ever pie and it is totally from scrartch, and I am proud of myself. I can't wait to try again soon! Brent runs marathons a lot, and while I don't, I have learned from him that when training for a marathon, you don't just go out and run 26 miles the first day, but you slow and build towards 26 miles. cooking, and life, is like that. you start slow, you build towards your goal. and while the first time you bake a pie it might look more like banana pudding with pork rinds on top than a pie, you will be so proud  of it  of of yourself for stricking it out and not giving up and be  ready  and excited to improve it(btw, this photo is now my wallpaper on my phone!). maybe I don't have to bake the perfect pie the first time around.
This is the Recipe I used:  Ricotta Pie Recipe

Italian Cookbook

I recently decided to teach myself Italian, and in light of that, along with Italian food being my favorite kind of food (to date, when I go to china and get some real chinese food it might change) and with my newly found passion and commitment to cooking, I have bought an Italian cookbook!

• Bugialli's Italy: Traditional Recipes From The Regions Of Italy
• what I love about this book is that it includes recipes from all the different Italain regions, which is really good. I saw some of the customer reviews of this and it got good reviews, and they all say that is is not "Italian american" food but authentic Italian food. the layout of the book is the same as the way traditional Italian meals are served: the meal that comes before the main dish, the main dish, the dessert,etc. I am VERY excited and it promises to be a good book. :)

i want to have different cookbooks and recipes from as many different countries as possible. I want to find a cookbook with international recipes, from many different countries but it's proving hard to find. but I am WAY excited for this cookbook, and I can't wait to try it!

The Inspiration

The inspiration for this blog comes from a(free)kindle book that I read and totally loved! it's called Life from scratch. in it, this recently divorced  woman starts learning how to cook and she starts a blog, and she is not just learning about cooking but through cooking she is learning about herself and about life. I really enjoyed it and since I'm getting into cooking, I decided to start my own cooking blog. it wont be as popular or as good as the fictional blog in that book, but I am still very excited about it. I'm thinking that I'll write about stuff that I cook, post recipes that I used, talk about cooking gadgets that I'm buying(that'll be another blog post. I'm getting VERY excited about all the cooking appliances I'm buying) and just things like that. this first post is extremely short, mostly because I'm in a hurry to go get lunch before my noon class and it is the "intro"post.