This image accurately describes how I feel about cooking:
Monthly Archives: September 2012
Nutcracker Garlic
Dozey’s boyfriend, Frank (who is actually Joe’s best friend) is quite the amazing cook. He came over and made some delicious asparagus with garlic the other evening. The next night, I asked him to show me how to use real garlic and put it into pasta. Here is what I learned:
1. Taking the crinkly paper feeling type stuff off of the garlic is quite a long process, I’m impatient dammit!
2. I was just waiting to use the nutcracker thing once the paper stuff was taken off
3. Still waiting
4. He cut some brown shit off of the garlic
5. Apparently these garlic pieces are called cloves?
6. It’s finally time for me to use the nutcracker looking thing (a garlic press?)
7. I am not strong enough to use this nutcracker. I am standing on my tippy toes because somehow I think this will help me.
The moral of the story: There was no point in learning how to use this nutcracker thing because I’m not strong enough therefore I will never get to put garlic in my foods.
om nom nom
Rosemary Roasted Garlic Cats
Grocery store adventures with a partner make the trip much more worth while. Joe decided to pick up some Tailapia while I picked up my usual chicken strips – or as they are officially called “breast tenderloins”.
The meat section surprised me today, everything was so cheap! All this chicken for 3 dollars, it’s going to last me for days. (These are things that you don’t know about when you have been living off of frozen meals for years). We decided to try another one of these Kraft style shake n bakes, Rosemary and Roasted Garlic. The directions say for chicken or fish so we assume we are good to go…
We finish up in the frozen section of the grocery store and we are realizing, why do we buy all of this frozen crap when we could make this same stuff and it would be way better? In this instance, we decided to scoop up some potatoes, my favorite!
In my head, the plan is for “little roasted fried potato jammies”, so I ask my good cookin’ buddy Jackie how to make said product. Apparently roasted means in the oven and fried means in the pan. My b! If you think back to one of my many breakfast potato feeaskos, you know I have attempted this task before. This time, I will leave it to Joe. He has all sorts of plans for garlic, olive oil, and pepper. Psh, who uses any sort of seasoning? Not this gal!
Time to get started!
- Gather supplies for cooking chicken and fish - danger! What are we cooking in? We have to keep these jammies separate. Apparently cookie sheets will work for our task. I am used to calling these things cookie sheets, where as most people call these baking sheets. (Thanks, mom!)
- How long do we cook our products for? The directions say, “BAKE. Until Done.” Really, Kraft, really?! It isn’t until you get inside of the package that it actually tells you how long to bake for. (Bad design, Kraft)
- Time to shake. We need to separate the shake materials so my chicken juice doesn’t get on his fish juice. Here goes the process of emptying out some of the product into another plastic bag – thank the chicken gods nothing bad happened during this process. But make sure to do this over the sink to avoid any potential disaster in your kitchen.
- Now I shall shake my chicken. (I shake my cheese back and forth, I shake my cheese back and forth). The funny part about shake n bake is that it doesn’t actually work. I really am just flipping the chicken strip around inside the bag and then throwing some on top once I have it placed on the cookie sheet.
- “Coat baking pan with cooking spray” – whelp, I don’t own any of this. Aluminum Foil it is! Al-oo-min-e-um. Here we go! The chicken and Tilpaia (how the eff do you spell Tilapia?!) basically look the same, ha.
- When I was in school, I took a Nutrition class where we watched a video about people cooking meat in their houses. It was so gross how people would not wash their hands thoroughly and then wipe them on a towel and the meat juice would basically end up all over their kitchen. So the most important step, is to wash your damn hands! (Cheetah finger nails, optional. Hello Kitty soap, mandatory.)
All while I’m doing this with grimey chicken hands, Dozey is trying to play fetch. What a great helper.
Meanwhile, Joe has been working on the potatoes and doing quite the excellent job. Look at all of this olive oil and garlic! If it were me, I would have put like a teaspoon of olive oil and been too lazy to cut up any garlic. (My eyes are watering already). He seems to think 3 potatoes was enough, but I’m a potato fiend. The best quote was – “I’m going to add some pepper, as long as we don’t catch on fire, we’re doing okay”. Cooking the potatoes this way turns me off because I hate scooting shit around in a pan, I just don’t get it.
Something I did do right during this process is guessing the time on how long each thing would take. Hey, I’m learning something! That is one of my biggest peeves about cooking though, timing the shit and doing all this shit at once. I am damn good at multi tasking, but not when it is something that HAS to be done or your house will blow up. (Irony: after we finished eating, the fire alarm in our building went off – not our fault!)
Rosemary Roasted Garlic Chicken Cats deliciousness!
