For as long as I can remember, I've always loved baking. Mostly cakes, cookies, brownies and pretty much anything which makes you put on weight just by looking at it. One of my favourite memories when I was little is my mum and I baking fairy cakes. I always thought it was magic how the bowl of ordinary things could turn into these lovely little bites of cakey goodness. But the best part for me was licking the bowl - to be fair it is still my favourite part.
At some point, I stopped doing any baking or cooking. I've no idea why, probably teenage angst and laziness. But when I moved out and lived on my own for the first time just over 4 years ago I had a steep learning curve. Up until that point my signature dish was cheesy beans on toast! I couldn't even boil an egg without the aid of a kitchen gadget to tell me when it was done. It took me a while to "get" the act of cooking as being anything other than reheating things other people had made. The first few months I think I pretty much survived on anything that went 'ping' or could be chucked in the oven. I didn't really see the point of cooking a proper meal just for me and I always thought it would be too stressful to come home after a long day at work and then spend hours slaving over a hot cooker. Then one day I was bored and decided to reread one of my old long forgotten student cook books. Suddenly I was inspired, somewhere between beans and pulses and so I decided to cook myself something. Being quite rusty, I did one of my favourite meals, Spaghetti Bolognese. I didn't follow a recipe, I just chucked in some ingredients which I already had in the house: Beef mince, tinned tomatoes, onion (copped roughly due to my poor knife skills) and as much garlic and Oxo cubes as I could take. I simmered away for a while and served it with spaghetti and a sprinkling of grated cheese and I tucked in. It was heavenly, it was like my taste buds been awoken and had rediscovered what real food was like. Not to blow my own trumpet though as I'm pretty sure that after a few months of microwave ready meals anything was an improvement!
The biggest shock was that I actually found it fun, I'd enjoyed adding things and tweaking the flavours to make the taste change. And that is where my journey started, my love of food and cooking was evoked. At first I mainly stuck to things like pasta, fajitas and various things from the freezer with chips. Over time my cook book collection grew alongside my courage and I dared to cook my first ever three course meal (Cheesy onion toasts, mustard stuffed chicken with potato wedges and salad and warm brownie cake for pudding just in case you were wondering) to cheer my boyfriend up he'd had after a hectic week at work.
The biggest shock was that I actually found it fun, I'd enjoyed adding things and tweaking the flavours to make the taste change. And that is where my journey started, my love of food and cooking was evoked. At first I mainly stuck to things like pasta, fajitas and various things from the freezer with chips. Over time my cook book collection grew alongside my courage and I dared to cook my first ever three course meal (Cheesy onion toasts, mustard stuffed chicken with potato wedges and salad and warm brownie cake for pudding just in case you were wondering) to cheer my boyfriend up he'd had after a hectic week at work.
Cooking for someone (or lots of people) is one of my favourite things in the world, I love to see people happy or full-up after eating something I made. I am what most people would class as an "enthusiastic" cook rather than an "excellent" one but I want to learn new skills and try new things. I am extremely clumsy - I tend to spread as much of the ingredients over myself and the kitchen worktop as I do cook with and I cut myself at least once or twice a week on various implements. Personally I think my biggest downfall is always my presentation, this is half due to my lack of patience and rushing things and half due to the cackhandedness that I just can't seem to avoid. The food might taste great (most of the time) but it looks nothing it probably should and is a rather sloppy mess on the plate. Something to work on this year!
I live with my mental cat and gorgeous boyfriend M who is my (usually) willing Guinea pig for my new cooking exploits. He likes the eating but he's not so keen on me boring him about new recipes and critiquing a first attempt. We have a lovely shiny new kitchen which I, I mean we, designed (mostly around my hobby/obsession). M's input was the induction hob (which is very cool once you get used to it) and the integrated dishwasher. The rest was all down to me. I now have a huge double oven which is ever so clever (it cleans itself as well as having a special function just for pizza), two huge shelves dedicated to my favourite cook books (the rest are piled up in the spare room waiting to be shelved) 2 pull out spice rack cupboards and 2 whole cupboards for baking ingredients and equipment. For my birthday last year I received a food processor/mixture from my parents which sits out on the worktop to remind me to use it more and I always wonder how I ever coped without it!
I've tried a food blog before but I got bored after 2 posts, so I clearly need a motivation to keep going. This year I've set myself a New Years Resolution - I will bake or make one new dish or recipe a week and will blog the results, with pics where possible. I have a huge pile of cookbooks which I don't use often enough (add to that I was bought about 10 new ones for Xmas) so I want to try something new, either sweet or savoury, from them each week. The recipes I use won't be my own and so I'll credit the original source/book/website as I go.
Wish me luck, I think I may need it!
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