Commitment Phobe

So, my commitment to make new recipes and post them pretty much flamed out before it even began.
I did make some good food this past week though.

• Hash and eggs last Sunday for dinner. Mmm, simple but satisfying.
• Chicken and veggie casserole on Monday -- from the Mayo Clinic cookbook. Yummy, simple and low fat/calorie.
• Defrosted the minestrone soup my MIL made a couple of weeks ago and had it with a tasty, crusty parmesan bread.
• Rigatoni with beschemel sauce, pretty green salad with dried cranberries and pecans for family night.

I realized that I was psyching myself out on the cooking front. As many of you know, J and I have been trying to eat right and lose weight. In my effort to choose the right foods with low calorie options, I kind of became paralyzed about making the wrong choice, so I just did not cook at all. This resulted in even worse decisions like eating out, picking up (yummy) burritos at Ole Ole or ordering pizza from Rovente's.

I've figured out that cooking is better than not and even a "wrong" recipe is better than ordering to go.

Pot stickers

I made a great pot sticker recipe yesterday for my girls' night cocktail event. They turned out pretty good. The recipe called for ground turkey or chicken, but there are a couple of veggies in the group so I made 1/2 with shiitake mushrooms and bok choy, and no meat. Both the meat and veggie versions turned out pretty good. I did not get the right pinching method down, so instead of looking like little pyramids or something, they looked more like little envelopes. Still tasty even if the execution was not 100%.

Billy

Today would have been my brother's 54th birthday.

I miss him.

Not a new years' resolution

So, we watched Julie and Julia yesterday. Good movie. The Julia Child portions are more compelling than the Julie Powell portions, but still an overall good movie.

I have been contemplating some type of project that would give me life a little more purpose, direction, a cause, something. I've thought of cooking and was rather inspired by Julie's courage to take on the recipes of Julia's book. Then I stopped and thought about it. I don't like that stuff -- truffles and mushrooms, kidney and peppers, animal guts, blue cheese, oysters -- you get the picture. How wasteful it would be for me to decide to take on a project like that and then either not want to eat or not be able to eat the foods because they grossed me out.

I applaud Julie Powell, however for her courage. I perused her blog after the movie and found that she is / was a picky eater and apparently tackled these foods with aplomb. Not sure I could be that committed.

I am thinking of something on a smaller scale. I have a ton of recipes floating around, cook books, torn out bits from magazines and newspapers. I'm trying to stir up the dedication to making something new each day from the piles of papers and recipe books that I have. Now that might not seem like such a big deal, but since I have trouble just making dinner most days, that's really quite a feat. It's not that I don't like to cook. I do...really, I do. It just always seems like so much work. Damn, work at something? And, it's not like I have a job right now, or kids to take to soccer and piano lessons, or that I volunteer for the greater good, or even belong to a book club or mah jong that would take up my precious time to prepare a meal. I'm just ... unmotivated.

So, I'm putting this out there in the hopes that public humiliation will keep me on track. I will choose a recipe, buy the ingredients and make it.

I confess that this will not start for a few days since I currently have enough leftover brisket in the fridge for about 4 meals, hamburgers prepared and ready to go on the grill and some lovely leftover chicken noodle soup from my mother in law.

Check back later this week for an update and to see what recipe I have prepared.
If I don't post something soon, please kick my ass!