• My dog is far from perfect. She bites my fingers on accident and tends to get a little too excited around the time I want to sleep, sleep, sleep. And, man, she farts a lot. And I don’t spend nearly enough time with her.
• Oh. My cat. HATES. HER. 
• I love them both.
• Kevin and I are doing well. Occasionally, we have little spats over things like him not cutting the fat off of my steak before grilling it (yes, I’m dumb). Thankfully he doesn’t hold grudges so I can’t either. It is a million times better than the 1 and 1/12ths years we spent doing the long distance thang. And I am NEVER doing that again. Free neck rubs!
• Whitney talked me into joining Jazzercise. I’ve been paired off with some girl named Mitsi (seriously!) and we’re competing to attend 60 times in June/July. My calves hurt. Old ladies get way too excited about dancing to “Its raining men.” There’s this one warm-up song that makes me think of the “L Word.” It is a fairly excellent way to spend a few hours every week.
• Also, I’ve re-re-restarted cooking. It’s going…fine. I should eventually look at the 54 cookbooks random people purchased for me. You know? Yeah. I should really be better at doing this.
• I haven’t done much work towards making friends in Kansas City. I’m in a weird position because I already had a few friends here and my boyfriend is here and sometimes I enjoy (really, really enjoy) being lazy. I should probably do more to get out of my comfort zone and meet new people. Eh?
• I should work on my vocabulary.

Wink does not approve of this post.

Today I made my grandma’s spaghetti and totally. Effed. It. Up. A waste of an hour and a half and $10-15. Last time I made it, I messed up the pasta which was an easy fix. This time the biggest part was burned and just tasted like crap.

I thought I was getting better (now that I’m more attentive when I cook) but the last few things I’ve made have been bad and this was a complete disaster. It’s just discouraging. That’s all I have to say about it.

Anyway, spaghetti try #2— D+.

At Thanksgiving, I asked my mom if I could help cook Christmas dinner. I think it took her by surprise, but she agreed.

Her first assignment for the day was a ham, cheese and chives scone for breakfast. We used some awful Rachel Ray recipe that didn’t have a cook time and called for ingredients but never said what to do with them, so we did some improvising. The scones turned out okay, but the recipe called for too much sugar and the mustard sauce we put on as a glaze overwhelmed the scone’s flavors so you couldn’t really taste the ham or chives.

Next were the desserts. My mom had me make orange salad and pumpkin pie. The orange salad is just a mixture of orange jello, whipped cream, canned pineapple and canned mandarin oranges. My mom added the whipped cream in too soon (the jello hadn’t started to harden yet) and had me add the entire container, so the orange salad was delicious but not quite the orange salad we were used to having. The pumpkin pie was AWESOME. I was really proud of myself here. I used a recipe on the side of the canned pumpkin and it was just really good. I wish I had been able to take the photo before a certain piggy took a bit out of the middle.

Somewhere in here, I prepared a marinade sauce for the beef tenderloin and also did this thing where we put holes in the beef and stuck garlic cloves in the holes. Yum. No pictures though, because big lumps of meat are not particularly pretty to look at…

Somewhere in here, I also sauteed frozen crab cakes and baked frozen rolls. Not really impressive, but at least I didn’t ruin anything.

Lastly, I made the mashed potatoes and the dressing for my mom’s spinach salad. The mashed potatoes also had chives and a little bit of cheese. My sister kept saying my favorite line from While You Were Sleeping (“These mashed potatoes are sooooo creamy”) while I stirred. Good times.

The dressing for my mom’s salad (which had spinach, mushrooms, bacon bits, bean sprouts and boiled eggs) consisted of ketchup, salad oil, chicken broth, green onions, vinegar, sugar, Worcestershire sauce and salt and pepper. It was really good (Leslie hated it). This was probably my second favorite item behind the pumpkin pie.

All in all, the experience was pretty great. My mom and I got along cooking all day in one room, so that says something. I think we enjoyed each other’s company and my mom appreciated the help. Most of the items I made turned out well; the only real problem was some pumpkin pie spillage as I transferred the pie to the oven. I give myself an A-.

I’m planning to make a little pesto while I’m here but I think that might be it for this trip. My mom got me this awesome Cooking Light cookbook and I cannot wait to use some recipes from it. It also has a lot of information about basic cooking techniques. One of the best gifts this year! Thanks Mom!

December 21 Project. What did you start this year that you’re proud of?

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As I’ve stated many times this year, I’m a packrat. I get it from my parents who have a three car garage filled with boxes of junk and old furniture instead of cars. This year I made an effort to get rid of my junk and become less attached to objects. I think I’ve made a fairly good attempt to do so. I got rid of seven trashbags in my move from one apartment to another. I have four bags of clothes in my car (they just need to be dumped in a donation dumpster, but I’m halfway there). I’d say I’ve been fairly successful at that project.

Another project I’ve started is the project in which I stop being a terrible cook. My mom says that I’m nesting but I maintain that I’m just trying to become an adult. I’ve now made stir fry on my own, spaghetti sauce on my own, egg nog on my own and I’ve become a successful egg poacher. Next on the agenda is cooking Christmas dinner with my mom. Eep! I give myself an A for effort and a B for cooking success. (Pictures below)

As most of you know, I’m a horrible cook. Really, very terrible. I never had interest in cooking and then once I started to cook for myself, I couldn’t pay attention long enough to cook a decent…anything. I hesitate to spend the money to purchase ingredients “to waste” on a meal I’ve already resolved to destroy. What sucks about this the most is that I (sort of) work in the food industry and constantly hear about people making these amazing concoctions (today was Dave’s pasta with braised elk something-or-another) and knowing that I “can’t” make these items myself. Oh, the other thing that sucks is that I’m an adult and need to stop being such a baby.

One of the bloggers I follow recently instituted “The Grand Plan” and has been following her TGP to a tee. Inspired by her, I’ve developed my own TGP (which I guess I should discuss later) and one of the steps is actually, legitimately making an attempt to learn to cook. (This may have also been inspired by the movie Julie and Julia…)

So far I have:

• one meh cookbook
• Krysten’s recipe for veggie chili
• My grandmother’s recipe for spaghetti sauce
• Instructions on how to poach an egg
• A link to 101cookbooks.com
• and best of all, Green City Market volunteer Lisa’s offer to come to my apartment a few times to teach me a few recipes (first session is Oct. 19th). This will probably be the most useful since I’m a serious kinesthetic learner.

If anyone has any tips or recipes, please send them my way. I suppose I should start with easy recipes for the cooking impaired, so keep that in mind. No Roast Duck for me!

thedailywhat:

Cooking With Death of the Day: Inspired by the Death Star Grill he spotted in the now-infamous collection of rejected Star Wars merch leaked last year, sheet metal worker Bryan Tate set out to transform what could have been into what is:

I started with two Weber grills and used the bottom portions because they were fairly spherical. I welded up the stand and fabricated the vent systems (there is a vent on the bottom also). The inside is painted in barbecue paint so it is safe to cook with. The outside is painted in engine enamel so it should be good to 500 degrees. I know it isn’t perfect but it was a fun project.

Salivating at the thought of being able to purchase your very own Death Star Grill? Get thee a paper towel and head over to Mr. Tate’s eBay auction, where the current bid stands at a wimpy $70.99.

[via.]

I want this for my half birthday (Friday; I’ll be 24.5). I’m expecting you to purchase this for me. Thanks.