A Cooker, a Baker, a Green Salad Maker

Honestly, if Jeremy and I end up eating pasta as much as my family did when I was younger, we'll have a special homemade pasta sauce recipe down in no time.

 

In some ways, I doubt we'll eat as much pasta as I did growing up (back then known as "spaghetti"), since now I'm gluten-free. Pasta isn't cheap when it's GF! But, I have found some favorites that are totally worth the extra bucks. Bionaturae has so far won over my GF taste buds, but if you have any other suggestions that I should try, please leave me a comment!

 

Pizza is another family specialty -- in fact, when my brother and I were little, we planned on opening a pizza restaurant in the backyard. I'd write up the menu (fancy handwriting and swirly accents, of course) and my brother would do most of the cooking. Obviously the dessert was up to me. And, being from a family of entrepreneurs, we expected our parents to pay for the meal -- did they think the menu with prices was just for fun?! That we were PLAYING?! No. We worked hard; we made dinner: now pay us. (Using kid logic, it somehow escaped us that we actually didn't BUY any of the ingredients ourselves . . . so we were asking our parents to pay for food they had already paid for. However, should we not have been compensated for our labor in this whole arrangement? What about the presentation? The ambiance?)

So, now Jeremy and I are working on a pasta sauce. Here's what I'm learning about cooking: it's not like baking. I knew that -- I mean, baking is a science and your recipe is a list of precise directions to follow. If baking is like architecture, cooking is like Jackson Pollock. In other words, baking and cooking are both art forms -- but they come together as masterpieces in very different ways.

In baking, I do a lot of planning ahead of time. I think of flavors that go to together and how to achieve the final product before I start. With cooking, you determine the result as you go.

Salads are way easier for me to figure out than spices in main dishes. Maybe because the ingredients are more pronounced than spices? Here I made a spinach salad with green apples, dates, and some feta. I wanted to use goat cheese, but that goat cheese was WAY beyond using (buh-bye).

I'm also getting into making my own dressing (basically I study the labels of dressings I like and try to replicate it). If I don't make my own, then I use Tessemae's. They're a new local company and so far everything I have tried has been a winner. I think they're exclusively at Whole Foods, and to me, it's worth the trip (refrigerated section in produce). Bwahaha, who am I kidding? I'm at Whole Foods anyway. (If I'm not at MOM's Organic Market -- a great local organic food store.)

What about you? Are you a cooker, a baker, or a green salad maker?

(p.s. I mentioned these products because I like them. They don't know me; it's just unrequited love here.)