Vicky Learns to Cook

I dont like the idea of meal kits, mostly because I love cooking, chopping, baking, all of it. I love planning every week and I love eating a really good meal. It makes my day when my meals are just scrumptious. But the advantages of meal kits are that you sort of have vegetables forced into your diet, if they're coming at you every week. And you dont have to wait in LINE at a store or market, which I just hate I'm so impatient. And I dont like CROWDS. They bump you, they get the thing you wanted, they're in the WAY when I'm on a mission to get something good. I know I need to work on that, but in the meantime while I'm in this bratty phase of my life, I am just in love with convenience. Then Imperfect Foods started to court me. The idea of eating the foods that would have been thrown out because they are small, or kind of ugly, or theres too much of it. Saving those foods, and offering them to us at a discount. They even have a big discount for those in need vi...

Happy New Year! We can all tell by the ads on social media that this is the season for losing weight. This is incompatible with all the pictures of bacon and cake all over the place. Having recently worked in a bakery, one of the scrumptious things we made were galettes. This is basically an open faced mini pie, about 5 inches around. They can be made savory or sweet. And they are awesome! When they are savory we often see them with an egg baked on top. However, anything made with pie crust is automatically fattening. You know it, I know it. We try to ignore it around the Holidays, but now that we've had our end of the year hurrah, we look around at our houses and see how much sugar and fat snuck its way in. It's a sad thing to have discovered something so good but so bad for you, really. So I've been thinking about it, and came up with a solution. This one was not bad. The savory galette I modeled it after is the sliced sweet potato white cheddar galette with...

If I cant have you   <-- (Click for the song)                                                              June 18 (Tues) Personal Wellness is our new mantra at work and I'm on board. Partly because I spend more time with these people than with my family, so they will notice whether I'm taking care of myself. Look at it as accountability. The other obvious part is that there is this rumor that I will look and feel better and younger. That's okay with me. I've been feeling like an old blob lately. But ... I like eating the white carbs, white flour, sugar, and fat in massive quantities. My body hates it but my mouth and my hormones are singing. I have to look into what else I can be eating and what appeals to me. Clearly I need sweet taste, and great textures. And then there is the exercise. Oh bother. This is gon...

Hey there, fellow foodies! I think we all have some recipes that we love, and some that could use some fixing up. (Or is it just me? ☺) One recipe that keeps coming out dry is my brownie. This is not a good thing, a dry brownie! I mean, brownies are supposed to be soft and fudgy, and "gooey in all the right places". So I now need to make a confession to you; I use some Martha Stewart recipes. I know. Scandalous! Sure she's famous for her "better than you, queen of homemaking" attitude and then later lying about a stock sale, landing her in jail then house arrest ...  But the woman knows how to cook. So today's blog is about trying out her brownies. What could go wrong? It's pretty simple, really, but it may require some ingredients you'd have to get on your next shopping trip. Namely, semi sweet bakers chocolate. Now, don't be afraid of it, it's really a good thing... oops sorry Martha I stole your line! You just melt 2 boxes,...

Cooking at home for practice.... October 5 633PM Well, that didn't turn out EXACTly like I planned.  I tried to make crepes mornay with chicken and mushrooms. However, crepes eluded me until the 8th try. I made 10. So then Andrew ate the two nice looking ones. I had to poach chicken and julienne it... not sure I even did that right.  The mornay sauce was for a huge pot so I had to quickly convert it .. and it needed a bechamel sauce.. more converting. Then the Mushrooms needed clarified butter and chopped herbs.  It was all  very complicated with many steps. And those crepes. So I lined a bread pan with broken crepes, placed chicken mushroom combo on top, layered more broken crepes, put on mornay sauce, paprika, and baked for 20 mins. Then topped with herbs and served. Man was that good. Broken or not. October 9 1000PM  Today in Cookery class: We made Clam Chowder, which turns out I actually love. And also Consomme which I could take or leave. We made a...

Hi, checking in again with my latest news from culinary classes. :) Here are the posts so far, enjoy! October 2 1103PM Culinary update: I got my Basic Skills class grade, an A- !! Not only that, my former teacher introduced me to my new teacher as her "star student"! Whaaaat?! I was so happy! Now I'm in Cookery, and today we learned to make stock in 50 gallon stockpots... I could climb inside they are so big.  We made a chicken stock and a brown stock (with tomato and caramelized the veggies). Smelled like heaven in there when we left. It has to simmer over night.  Tomorrow we make soup. Tur ns out the bouquet garni and sachets we made last week were used in the stock tonight. So far, this is a much less pressured class. And we have a planned meal every night that we have class (except tonight was just homemade jam and bread (and peanut butter, yuck), and pretzels with cheese sauce.) Not really a meal but they fed us, who am I to complain? October 4 900AM Yesterda...

Not everyone has Facebook, so I am repeating my ruminations from Basic Skills (in the kitchen) class. Enjoy! September 4 at 10:50 PM  ·  Today in culinary class: Learned the names of equipment, cut up rutabaga, turnip, potato, onion, garlic into garlic paste. Made clarified butter aka liquid gold aka ghee. Sliced cheese on this massive cheese slicer ("has everyone cut the cheese yet?). Made waffle fries but they were very thin and called gaufrettes. Put together and took apart the food processor. Ate grilled cheese with dill havarti and cheddar and tomato and of course gaufrettes. I'm not getting dinner any more on tuesdays and wednesdays. They actually feed us in culinary class at the end of the day. And you dont know what you're getting so its a surprise.  :) September 5 at 10:44 PM  ·  Today in culinary class: Correctly minced parsley, even got a compliment from the chef! Made yogurt (w...