So why this
blog, you ask?
One day, I
was reading one of the well known food magazines out there. There is a section in this magazine that has
30-minute meals that are under $10. I
looked at the ingredient listing and decided I was going to make it. A challenge if you will. I went to 4 different grocery stores and the
cheapest I could find the ingredients was $22 – and that was with leaving out
pantry staples. The spices alone were
over $10. It kind of ticked me off.
So with the
inability to make the meal for the stated amount, I decided I was going to time
myself. I had 30 minutes to complete the
meal from start to finish. This
particular meal included a lot of chopping vegetables. It took me 20 minutes alone to do all the
chopping. All-in-all it took me about 1
hour and 15 minutes.
Once I was done, I compared pictures. Now I know there are professionals that style
the food for photo shoots. I get
that. But I was very frustrated that
sometimes my dishes didn’t even come close.
Then one day, when analyzing a recipe that went wrong, I realized that
their food had totally different ingredients in it. So either they let their food stylists add
things to the dishes, or they tweaked the recipe and neglected to change it.
I quickly
came to realize that:
- Many magazines base the “Cost of Recipe” on amount used, not amount to purchase.
- Professional chef/recipe writers don’t include menial tasks (like chopping/grating/etc) in the recipe time
- Recipes could be published incomplete or different from what was photographed
Now these
things are annoying, but not the main reason that I started the blog.
See, I bring
a lot of my food as leftovers and often I’ll cook and bake for co-workers. A lot of people would ask me:
- How to cook
- Where I got my recipes
Honestly, I
taught myself to cook. Yeah, my mother
cooked, but she was always too busy to teach me anything. She’d direct me to stir a sauce or chop up
some onions. We really didn’t cook
together. So when I moved out, I would
try things here and there. I LOVE
cookbooks and magazines and started collecting them. Little by little, I started cooking more,
learning from my mistakes.
Now, when
someone asks me where I get my recipes, I’ll tell them which book/magazine I’ve
gotten it from. Usually I’ll offer to
let them copy it. Then I got to
thinking, if I altered a recipe, how would they know that? What if something wasn’t clear in the recipe
that I had worked out on my own?
Finally, if there were like me and didn’t know how to do certain things,
would they know where to go to find help?
I started worrying about people giving up on
cooking. Believe me, I hear it a lot –
“I’ve tried to cook, but I can’t ever make things work out.” I started looking at the articles and recipes
I had been giving people and realized: I've been cooking a long time and if I
can't make these things in the same amount of time, spending the same amount of
money and making them look pretty, how is someone just starting out cooking going
to do it? I didn’t want people to give up before they even got started because
of a badly written recipe. No wonder
people have reverted to eating fast food so often!
And from that, the blog was born. My cousin, a chef and bakery owner, said I
should document my mistakes and show people how to fix them. Explain how to do things that maybe I was
unsure how to do when I started.
Finally, share some of my favorite recipes with all my changes.
When I make
a meal plan, I try to do easy but yummy, but I’m not afraid to try something a
little difficult. I’m going to be honest
and tell you the things that tasted great and the ones that taste
no-so-great. Which ones were easy and
the ones that made me cry trying to make them.
Finally, I always try to balance out my meals. Of course I indulge on occasion, but I try
really hard to make all my meals as healthy as possible.
I encourage
feedback, but please read my Rules for Posting Comments. Finally, if you want to talk to me, you can
e-mail me at YouWantMeToCook@gmail.com. I promise I’ll respond as soon as I can.
Happy
cooking!
