Cooking Advice from the Foley's Chef

I never cooked a whole lot before I got married.  I was, however, good at making cookie dough.  I was also good at flipping pancakes.  Needless to say, I didn’t have much experience.

Since this time, I have started to actually like cooking.  Maybe having to do this every day without getting bored deludes me into thinking it is fun.  I’m not sure, but either way—I have learned a lot about cooking things in the past 4 months.  Here are some of my findings:

• If you’re trying to make mashed potatoes, you should chop up the potatoes instead of trying to boil them whole.  Unless you have about 4 hours to kill or are going for a crunchy-texture.  Don’t be tricked into thinking that if you mash crunchy potatoes enough, they’ll become soft.  Because they won’t.
• Some spices are inherently gross.  Just because they’re called for in a fancy recipe, don’t think that the taste of the spice will suddenly be good. 
• Sometimes you should use the Restaurant Rule which states, “If you cannot see this dish being served at a restaurant, that means it is probably bad.”  Specifically, recipes that claim that you can mix dishes/ingredients from different nationalities should be a red flag.  There is a reason why few restaurants serve things like “enchilada pasta.” *I made up the Restaurant Rule, in case you are wondering.
• Avoid any recipes involving 1 T of pepper.  Surprise: it will be spicy.
• Homemade bread bowls are a lot more work than they are worth.  For crying out loud, just make some regular rolls and dip them in your soup.  I know it’s not as cool as carving a bowl out of carbohydrates, but it tastes better and will give you time to do things more exciting than babysitting chunks of dough.  Plus, one bread bowl is like eating a full loaf of bread.  Too much.
• Crock Pots recipes are almost always safe to try.  Be wary of actually turning the crock pot on when you leave for work.
• Soups are surprisingly not that hard to make.  If they call for large portions of cheese, they are guaranteed to be delicious.  I recommend broccoli-cheese or Wisconsin cauliflower varieties.
• If you try to make homemade bread sticks, be careful not to roll them too flat or they’ll end up as tortilla chips.
• You can make stuffed crust pizza by putting some string cheese in your dough.  So easy.
• Fresh spinach shrinks like 50 fold when you cook it.  Just in case you wanted to know.
• Try to cook a ton of new things before your husband has any expectation of your cooking skills.  Then you have a good excuse if things take a nasty turn.

Magnified Scariness

Man Alive.  (That is for you, Megan Jeffries)  I get scared really easily sometimes. 

This gets funny at our house because Scott tries really hard not to scare me.  This, however, usually results in magnified scariness.  For example, I'll be cooking in the kitchen, and Scott will come to the doorway.  He will think about the least scary way to approach me from behind and decide on stomping his feet a little to get my attention.  I will then jump 3 feet and take the sharpest, longest intake of breath known to man.

I don't know why I am so jumpy.  Just know that you should never make any sudden moves toward me or you might get a kick in the shins or at the very least a Tony Horton "hook, uppercut."

Sweet Dreams

Scott recently read the blog and commented on our Halloween post.  Apparently we didn’t do a single one of the things I said we were going to do.  That is kind of hilarious.  No pumpkin carving, no hiding in the basement from the trick-or-treaters, and no pumpkin pie.  Oh well.  It was a good holiday anyway!

Today’s post is about sleep.  Getting married changes the whole idea of sleeping through the night quite a bit.  I don’t think either Scott or I have slept through the night uninterrupted since we got married.  Here is why this happens:

1.      Scott has the longest legs in the world, so it’s inevitable that sharing a bed involves getting kicked sometimes.

2.      Sometimes I end up “sharing” Scott’s pillow.  I’m not sure if my slumbering self just wants to snuggle in the night or what, but I always end up all the way on Scott’s side of the bed, while he clings to the edge.  When he brings this up, I usually play the “I’m just trying to love you” card, and that’s the end of that conversation.

3.      Sleep definitely clouds Scott’s judgment sometimes.  Being kissed into consciousness at 2 AM can be kind of alarming.

4.      I am a sleep-mumbler, but thankfully Scott sleeps through it.  Most of the time.

5.      Living by a junior high with a loud fire alarm that goes off in the night might have something to do with all this.

6.      Sometimes we have funny dreams that we can’t wait to share, so we end up just waking each other up to talk about it all.

I’ve never been happier to lose sleep. :)