I’ve decided to start a cooking blog.
I think it’s hilarious too because I have absolutely no idea how to cook well, if at all. My dear mother offered to teach me throughout my younger years, but I was content to clean up after the meal rather than make the mess beforehand. Looking back, my logic makes no sense whatsoever.
Now that I’m a twenty five year old, who has fully exhausted the take out menu to all fast food chains in the immediate Albuquerque area, living in an apartment with one roommate and no mother, I surmise it’s about time I give it a go.
Before we begin, I should say I know how to make two things from scratch: Burritos and fries. That’s it—unless it comes prepackaged or in a cereal box. Kidd you not. I’m aware that these are two of the worst things for you, which is why I’m trying to branch out. Admittedly, after a my battle with a kidney stone and less than stunning hair, I’m a little obsessive about nutritional intake. (I take vitamins and supplements like B1, biotin, and calcium to make sure I don’t die too young or lose the beauty I have to starving cells. Be shallow about your nutrients, my friends. Be very shallow.) Recently, I also got into the habit of buying Odwalla shakes and V8 juice to keep my fruit and veggie intake consistent. I recommend both. (If you’re sodium conscious, V8 comes in the reduced variety. Yippee.)
Yesterday and today, I marched myself to Smith’s (our sad, local grocery) and stocked up the kitchen with condiments, celery, cheese, tortillas, spaghetti and sauces, crackers, bread, eggs, turkey, peanut butter, almonds, green chille, avocado, V8, Odwalla Superfood Smoothie, and low calorie kettle corn. (Because out of everything I listed, that last item is the most important to me. That and alcohol, which I normally keep well stocked. But that’s another story. Next time, I’ll do a cocktail blog.)
This evening, alerted by the persistent roaring of my stomach, I hunted through my new stash of goodies for something tasty. In the end (mostly because the spaghetti pot was still in the washer) I settled on a quesadilla. For anyone unfamiliar, that’s basically a tortilla with cheese. It’s a Southwest thing… But I had all these other fun ingredients to play with too. I also chose onion and green chili.
After setting up the quesadilla maker (which I thought was a pancake maker for the longest time) with non-stick spray and a fresh tortilla, I took the onion out of the package. Staring at it, I was sort of stumped. Embarrassingly so. I realized that I had never peeled an onion before and wasn’t exactly sure if I could eat the papery substance on the outside or not. Would it be a waste to take it off? In the end, I peeled it. It was very tedious. The thin papery stuff gives way to actual onion slices as it wraps around and I couldn’t decide where to stop pulling. Eventually, my knife and I created a jagged, white, very ugly, smelly onion. And I cut some of it up into tiny, uneven, very unattractive pieces to sprinkle inside the quesadilla. Before I knew it, I had way too much diced onion. (Thus, overenthusiasm leads to overabundance. Noted.)
I divided what I had in half.
After melting the cheese and adding my onions, salt, and green chili, I also decided that it needed honey mustard for dipping. (I suspect that my body was slightly salt deficient today. Honey mustard is not recommended as a dipping sauce for normal quesadillas. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
The end result: Too much onion. It’s going to be coming out of my pours for days. FOR DAYS. Also, meat (like canned chicken) would have been a great addition. However, it still tasted pretty damn good. Especially after I washed it down with some red wine.
OKAY, maybe it was awful and I’ll eat anything that’s put in front of me. (That happens when you live on your own and you occasionally forget to eat for half a day.) Case in point, I hope to get leaps and bounds better at cooking within the next year and plan to document my progress by blogging. I think that’s all I wanted to say. Where’s my wine?