Cooking skills have never been top priority in our household. I can turn out an acceptable meal, but I don't enjoy the process, and even my best efforts are ones that I can chuck in the slow cooker and forget about it. Neil loves to cook, but hasn't got a clue what he is doing, and the results are very variable. I shut up and say nowt, because he is more than willing to prepare a dinner for me every night, but the starting point for these meals is often a pre-packaged meal from the supermarket.
Last week he came home in triumph, brandishing a 'bargain' he had purchased in Tesco - half price at only £1 - a ready meal for one consisting of penne pasta in a tomato & basil sauce. Something finally clicked into gear in my brain and I was appalled! 'But darling, you could make this yourself and feed 6 people for £1, AND it would be tastier'. So we decided to have a go at real cooking. Co-incidentally, a few days later I watched a TV programme in which pre-packaged diet food was given short shrift for its poor nutritional value and suspect ingredients.
Now Julia will delight in telling people (and it is a funny story) about my first foray into cooking when I had to phone her up several times to get step-by-step instructions on making a chicken casserole. However, this happened over 40 years ago, and several marriages later, I have accumulated some knowledge about basic cooking techniques, although not much more joy in the process. But I am a Virgo, and 2 things I love are following instructions and showing others the right way (my way) of doing something. So you can imagine the fun I had, in the kitchen with my lovely husband, as we worked our way through the recipe for a vegetarian pasta bake (actually a lasagne of sorts). Neil was beside himself with excitement, almost unable to wait till it was cooked to see how it had turned out. I do believe this was his first cooking attempt starting from scratch with fresh ingredients and a recipe book.
It turned out lovely, probably cost about £2.50, was enough for 6 people and we had great fun doing it. Neil unfortunately thinks he has cracked it and wants to move straight to the Maddhur Jaffrey style of cooking, but I will take him through a few more basics before we move on to ingredients like Norwegian Beaver Cheese and Mexican Yaks Milk.
1 comment:
This is how you cook Norwegian Beaver's cheese - first you have to catch a beaver which is done by tempting it into the open with Shitake mushrooms.
Squeeze the beaver gently to extract the cheese then add it to lightly steamed Dodo eggs and finaly top with well matured yak's milk.
Or you can get a good ready made one at Aldi.......
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