Footprints on the Moon

This is really a post that should probably go over on Jenn Cooks, but right now this blog has the larger audience and I’m hoping for some feedback. So let’s take a break from blogging about things like assisted living software and talk about some food, okay? Desserts to be specific.
I get a free publication from Kraft called Food & Family, and it has all kinds of recipes including one for Mint Thins made out of Ritz Crackers. I’m just wondering if anyone here has made these, or something similar. I knew someone who made a toffee-like thing out of saltines that was supposedly really good, but I don’t know… it seems to me it would just taste like a cracker dipped in chocolate.

Since starting my new cooking blog a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been surprised to discover just how many budding chefs I already read on a daily basis. I’ve also been really surprised by how many people that I consider to be good cooks, still consider themselves to be learning. I think part of this is probably just a continued quest for knowledge, but I think part of it is also people never giving themselves credit for what they CAN do.

I know I don’t give myself enough credit for what I do in the kitchen, but the fact remains that I am incredibly inexperienced. I didn’t cook spaghetti noodles for the first time until this past May. And I’m 24!! That’s kind of crazy. I finally started the Recipe Challenge over on Jenn Cooks though, so feel free to come give me a recipe to test!

I cannot begin to express how badly I need new pots and pans. I don’t even mean that I need a fancy set of berndes cookware or anything. Just a decent set of pans. All of mine are the ones that come in those “Back To College”, “First Apartment” kits you always see out around this time of year. Since I haven’t been back to college in a few years, they’re getting a bit old, and trust me when I tell you that these pans were definitely not created for long-term use. The pans are so bad that I burned my dinner 3 nights ago, and I’m *still* trying to soak off the burnt food. I think it permanently fused with the crappy material on the bottom of the pan! I might just cook more if I had decent pans (or a decent kitchen)!

I finally made my first bento on Sunday for work. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to test it out because if something wasn’t right, or if it wasn’t enough food, I had the opportunity to run out and get something else to eat. That’s not always an option during the week! Without further ado, my first bento:

The bottom tier is flower shaped peanut butter sandwiches. I had pickles in a small container on the side for these… I can’t do regular peanut butter sandwiches, but I tried originally with my butterfly cutter and PB&J, and well, the butterflies just looked like they had headwounds. Then we have cheese and crackers.
The top tier has cheesecake filling, grapes, and teddy grahams.

I actually ate this bento in two different sittings, which ended up working out pretty well. If I’d wanted to eat it all at once, it definitely would have been too much cheese and crackers. But not bad for my first bento, if I do say so myself. I think every bento I pack will teach me a little bit… like this one I learned to pack half the cheese and crackers and put veggies or something in the rest of that space!

I have a confession to make… I bought a bento set. It’s the Natural Leaf set and it’s adorable. It arrived at my house probably a week ago. That’s not the confession part… the confession is I still haven’t used it. Part of the problem is that I don’t really have any bento foods in my apartment, and I haven’t had the chance to go grocery shopping. I joked with Loretta about making a bento out of a Lean Cuisine pizza, or a PB&J and Cheez-It bento. But that’s not really what I’m after… and I need to go to the grocery store to get things like celery, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, grapes, etc. etc. etc.

I’m also having a bit of performance anxiety. Now that I have my bento box in hand, I’m starting to think this might not be as easy as it looks. I’m scared! I look at all the lunches posted at BentoYum and the Bento Lunch community, and then my performance anxiety increases! But I promised Retta I’d make a bento soon, and I will… even if it has to be a PB&J and Cheez-It bento.

I think I might officially be a dork. Why is that?? Well, that would be because I’m a single woman in my early 20s and I spent Friday night with my mom. But I walked out of the situation with a big bowl of the Best.Chicken.Salad.Ever.

Chicken. Crushed Pineapple. Chopped Pecans. Miracle Whip. Croissant. HEAVEN.

I’ve got a ton of stuff I should be doing, like washing the dishes, or taking out the trash that’s starting to stink. I did finally clean the litterboxes (I had to- the smell was about to knock me over!)… I just can’t do much more than that because any decent sized breath I take in makes me cough until I think I’m going to puke. Hopefully I’ll make some progress tomorrow though because, as you can probably tell, I’m behind on the blogging stuff too.

I haven’t been posting here much the last several days, and that’s because I have a strange new obsession. And it’s called Bento. It all started with Loretta making a post about Bentos on Just Not Martha. I followed her link over to Bento Yum just to try and figure out what the heck a Bento was, and a new obsession was born. Real basically, Bento-ing is a way of packing a healthy, portion controlled lunch in appealing and creative ways. I don’t have a bento set (but I find myself really, really wanting one… if they stock a Keroppi one, I’ll be sold!), and I’ve never made one, but I can’t quit looking at them! My eyes have been opened, and people are posting pictures of their bentos all over the place– their own sites, LiveJournal, Flickr.

I have a bad habit of researching things, hobbies, whatever, and getting all excited about them and never following through. I’m hoping Bento isn’t one of them though… I’m not sure what’s got me so entranced with it, but I really like the idea. The fact that I have the desire to eat healthy but never manage to follow through is also a huge draw I think. Have you (besides Retta ) ever heard of bentos? Would you consider packing that kind of lunch(/breakfast/dinner)?

YouTube is currently blocked at work. It has been for a long time actually, but every once in awhile, it’s unblocked. It’s too bad because I could spend my time sitting here watching cooking videos, or something similar. Did you know that there are cooking videos on YouTube? I didn’t, but I’m not surprised. YouTube has everything.
I’m interested in checking out the videos though… maybe they can help me be less of a cooking schlub. Probably not, but at least I could pretend like I knew what I was talking about! I need the video that falls somewhere between “How to Boil Water,” and “How to cook an amazing gourmet meal for 300 people in 30 minutes.” Think you can find one of those for me?

After I shared a scrapbook layout with some friends on Friday night, it was brought to my attention that there are some unfortunate souls out there in the world who do not know how to make a fried bologna sandwich… indeed– there are some who don’t even know what they are. Tragic, isn’t it? So, ever compassionate to their plight, I made the ultimate sacrifice of having a fried bologna sandwich for breakfast yesterday so that I could make the following tutorial.

You will need:

You will need a frying pan, bread, mayo, and of course, bologna.

Step One: Put your mayo, or miracle whip, on your bread.

Step Two: Put two slices of bologna into your frying pan. Put three slits in the edges of the bologna and one in the middle (see example below). This is very important, it will help your bologna to cook and keep it from shrinking up.

Step Three: Cook the bologna. How long this takes depends on your personal tastes… I don’t like mine quite as brown as other people do. You can see what mine looks like when I’m done below… it will bubble up in the middle, this is good, it’s supposed to do that! When your first side is done, use a fork to flip it over.

Step Four: When your bologna is fried to your specifications, use your fork to remove it from the pan. Put the bologna on your mayo-ed bread. Put the sandwich together, and enjoy!

Yummy!

How ironic that the day after my cooking mishaps post, what should cross my desk, but a link to Chic.edu. Yeah, that would be the Culinary and Hospitality Institute of Chicago. Haha! Yeah, that’s not going to happen… they’d kick me out in the first day! I can cook only basic things, and I’m less than hospitable most of the time

In all seriousness though, the baked goods of yesterday were a big hit. The peanut butter fingers, especially. I got one small piece, the pan did not make it through the night. The butterscotch brownies survived a little better, so I took them to work with me today so that I wouldn’t eat the rest of them all by myself. Good reviews all around. And no more flour on my kitchen floor!