food

i'm obsessed with cooking right now. so much so, that i'm thinking of venturing on a project. project 156, to be exact. three dinners each week, cooked by yours truly. let it be known that i'm not a good cook. i'm not a fan of cooking. partly because i hate to follow directions and i don't have the patience to read each step, word by word. partly because i hate math and i hate measuring. and partly because i'm helvetica, boring. i don't really like to try new foods. i would honestly be very satisfied and quite happy eating the same thing every day. but, i'm married to a cook who does like to try new foods and who can never seem to get my food cooked the way i like it, well done and plain jane (but who still makes delicious things all the time and, quite frankly, i'm a little bit jealous...okay, make that competitive). actually, the real problem is that i don't really think about food which is really bad considering i have two kids who need to be fed. my husband, on the other hand, is constantly thinking about food. he wakes up and, before he even eats breakfast, asks what we're having for dinner. then he comes up with an elaborate meal when he very well knows we're on a fairly strict budget. it's maddening. so, i'm taking matters into my own hands and will be cooking (at least) three times a week. my goal is to have dinner prepared and eaten by five pm. can i really do it? we'll soon find out.

in the meantime, i did make sugar cookies from the pioneer woman cookbook. i can't find the recipe online so i'll include it here.

angel sugar cookies
2 large eggs
1 c canola oil
1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter
1 c granulated sugar, plus extra for the tops of the cookies
1 c powdered sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
4 c plus 2 tbsp flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar

cream eggs, oil, butter, sugars and vanilla, add everything else and mix. refrigerate for 1 hr then spoon onto cookie sheet. smear a dab of butter onto bottom of glass, dip in sugar and then use to flatten the balls of dough. dip and flatten for each cookie. bake 9-11 minutes, makes 18 cookies.

i had some colored sugar that i wanted to get rid of so i used that as decoration instead of white sugar. also, i use a small cookie scoop and i actually ended up with 40 average-sized cookies which was kind of maddening since i just wanted to make a quick, small batch so we wouldn't have loads of leftovers. hmph! it was quick, though. aside from the 1 hr chill time, it only took about 5 minutes to mix it all up. the cookies were good. it's hard to find a good sugar cookie and this one is pretty close to what i like.

i also made pw's baked lemon pasta. super delicious! surprisingly, this pasta is really light which is great. my husband was surprised (you'll find he's always surprised when i do follow directions and make good food). he loved it so much he said i can only make it once every 3-4 weeks...because he could eat it more often than that. i thought it was kind of boring to serve alone so i added a meat (also because my husband loves meat). i don't know what kind of meat it was...i never really pay attention to that stuff, i just buy what looks appealing. my husband (oh man, how many times can i say that tonight?) made some sort of a balsamic reduction which paired well with the pasta. very, very good. i definitely recommend you try this one. i think it would be great without meat, especially if you added fresh veggies to it like tomatoes, zucchini, asparagus or even peas.oh, the best part? it was really, really easy to make (well, except for the reduction...don't even ask me how you do that).