Friday, July 15, 2011

first attempts

So I said that I would write some throwbacks with some of the recipes I made before I started the blog. First, however, I thought I would show some of my first recipe-less disasters attempts at cooking myself a meal. As mentioned, I really couldn't cook at all before I went to Morocco to start life as a recent college graduate with a real job in the real world.

My fellow recent postgrad, Eryn, and I bonded together to feed ourselves (and generally spend every waking moment together, I'm only exaggerating by about an hour of individual time a day), and it was not pretty for a while. I really had this thing against using recipes; I wanted to be able to make good food based on my own know-how. Now, I realize that your own know-how comes after you research, learn, practice, learn from mistakes, and so on. Then you know what goes together and how flavors and ingredients work and so on.

Finally, I decided to give in and use recipes, starting with my beloved Smitten Kitchen, where I first learned how to produce something that tasted good by my own hands and raw ingredients. Before that, Eryn and I, we had some blunders. Things improved a bit and we were thrilled and proud; though looking back, I think that we may have overreacted. At least that tells you about the quality we started out with...

Wow, a really delicious Moroccan beef hamburger..sub..thing with soggy fried potatoes, mushrooms, and asparagus. 
An everything-but-the-kitchen-sink fritatta? What could be better?! 
 Proud of my ability to cook mushrooms. 
See? I really did start out with baby, baby steps...
YES! Cooked mushrooms! A true success story! 
At least we were using healthy, fresh ingredients: eggplant, mushrooms, and asparagus with rice 
Pasta with a homemade sauce that probably tasted good in spite of looking black and unappetizing.
Bon appetit!  That's frozen spinach, frozen peas, chicken, and mushrooms, cooked "Chinese" style, 
aka with butter and soy sauce. 
As we gained confidence with our fabulous cooking skills, 
we started introducing meat into our cooking exploration.
Now, a more respectable pasta dinner. Its the end of the beginning.  

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