I Be Cooking

Deep Fried Cauliflower.

Pesto Spaghetti

This year's self-improvement theme—aside from the continuing last year's theme of becoming a pro at air travel—is cooking. I've been regularly making food since coop summer and started doing the "Wine Dinner" thing senior year. This 2011, however, I'm turning up the heat (har har).

This weekend required new techniques and stuff that I can actually say I'm more comfortable doing again when I need to. (A lot of this was a first attempt on my own, and I was honestly a little scared of deep frying stuff.) The deep fried cauliflower required use of my new whisk and tongs, both of which I purchased not even two weeks ago. The pesto spaghetti required the use of a blender for the sauce.

I suppose I'll get a little more serious into food photography as I try to get better at both cooking and making photographs.

Check out my Flickr set 'Food and Cooking'.

Hamburgers

I tried making make-shift hamburgers for dinner tonight to get rid of the rest of the ground beef I had left. I got the inspiration while watching Kitchen Nightmares by Chef Gordon. Heh. I tried to copy what he said on the show.

I mixed in egg, salt and pepper, and Worcester sauce with some red onion.

It was a bad experience, but it all ended well. I do not think I will be doing it again though.

Cooking on a Sunday

Yesterday, I had said I cooked the "most elaborate dinner I have cooked for myself this summer." Today, I claim to say that again. I spent two hours on it today. It was okay ...

For breakfast, I had potato hash with egg and buttered whole-wheat toast.





For dinner, I had chicken and green beans with rice. The marinade was made with water, soy sauce, garlic, ginger, green onion, and corn starch.

Chicken and Broccoli

This is so far the most elaborate dinner I have cooked for myself this summer. It came out really well. Take a look:

Going Meat-free, Sort of

I recently came across a New York Times article titled "Putting Meat Back in Its Place", under the Dining and Wine section. What struck my attention was that I have been thinking about the same points as the article brings up, namely:

1. Forget the protein thing.
2. Buy less meat.
3. Get it out of the center of the plate.
4. Buy more vegetables, and learn new ways to cook them.
5. Make nonmeat items as convenient as meat.
6. Make some rules.
7. Look at restaurant menus differently.

My reason for reconsidering meat is simply a practical one. Vegetables are generally easier to cook, and easier and quicker to prepare. Cheaper too. The drawback, I think, is that it is harder to make an all-vegetable dish seem more impressive, by virtue of point #3 from above; meat generally claims the center of the dish.

I'm not going to claim to become a vegetarian, but I will also not try as hard to get meat in to every night's dinner.

Having started cooking for myself this summer, I don't think I have eaten this healthy in a long time, since I was away from home. I have put aside Collegetown food for a while, to save money, and to eat healthy.

It also saves gas and helps fight against global warming, or at least I'd like to think.