Successes and Failures

I will admit, when I started this "journey" I fully expected to fail.  My mom has told me, out of all of her children, I was the one she never expected to pick up cooking and run with it.  And yet, here I am, cooking away.  

I have another thing to admit though:  after my successes in the beginning, I began to think that I was too good at cooking to fail. But, boy, was I wrong.  Here are some pictures of the successes...and the failures:

This was my first major success...Chicken Parmesan

For my first time cooking dinner for guests, I made my mom's best recipe: Crescent Chicken

And the dessert for my guests? Individual Molten Lava Cakes!

By far my favorite thing (and impossibly healthy too): Peach and Blueberry Cobbler with Ginger and Cinnamon

And of course...there are the failures, such as this attempt at a Spinach and Salsa Omelet

and my biggest disappointment of all...brownies.  The picture on the left is what they are supposed to look like.  Mine looked and tasted gross.

But despite my failures, I have had some pretty amazing successes.  And those small successes, or victories as I like to call them, make this whole journey worthwhile.  Because even when I fail and (in my mind) waste good ingredients on these failures, I know that down the road there is another victory just waiting for me.  Cheesy? Yes.  True?  Absolutely.

The Beginning

So it seems that in any story found in any movie, book, or song, there is a beginning.  And it is always the best place to start.  After all, if you were to open The Princess Bride right in the middle, you might wonder why on earth Westley is fighting so hard to find a girl and why Buttercup is so resistant to marrying the prince.  However, if you were to start from the beginning, you would find yourself sharing in Westley's urgency and feeling the same revulsion to Prince Humperdink that Buttercup does.  So, with that being said, let's start at the beginning...

At the end of May 2010, I found myself with an apartment.  No longer living on campus, I would be on my own in terms of finding food.  After all, the idea of spending $400 on a 50 meal meal plan for the school cafeteria seemed like a great waste of my hard earned money.  So, I decided it was time to learn how to cook.  Somehow (I don't even know how), I came across a website with easy recipes that not only sounded wonderful, but they were also HEALTHY!  This seemed perfect to me because I was trying to eat healthier and maintain a healthier lifestyle.  So, I bookmarked a few of the recipes on my web browser, bought the ingredients, and got to work.

I will say, I was very nervous about the outcome of this experiment.  After all, to my family I am the child who burned rice.  In a microwave cooker.  (It helps to read the recipe...especially when it calls for two cups of water and one cup of rice, not the other way around).  The resulting rice was a solid mass that could be used as a weapon.  Seriously.  I tried to cut it with a knife but all that happened was bits of rice chipping off and hitting my sister in the face.

So, the first thing I attempted to make was: Cinnamon Monkey Bread.  Now, I had never had monkey bread before, so I had nothing to compare it too.  This is a blessing (in that I don't have to think about the other versions I had tasted that were better) and a curse (I didn't know what in the world it would look or taste like).  All in all, it turned out a great success.  I'll let the picture speak for itself!

It was cinnamony, sugary, gooey goodness.  I think it is safe to safe my roommate, family, and friends all agreed (especially since they were gone within 12 hours of making them!).  

Well, now that you (whoever my readers may end up being) have the background, I think it's time I got to cooking!