Reading about Cooking

Sigh.  I haven’t been cooking.  Sigh.  I housesat last week and didn’t have my essentials with me. 

But that can’t really stop my food/cooking addiction.  I bought a new cookbook.  The Best Recipe from Cook’s Illustrated.  It is huge…over 1000 pages.  It is written like a novel, so I am reading it like a novel.

I actually have used this cookbook before.  I made peppermint chocolate brownies from scratch.  Think Starbucks around Christmas.  My friend wanted some, and when we went to Starbucks (after Christmas) they were gone.  Gone to never return…until next year at Christmas…

Oh the heartbreak.

So the day her divorce was being finalized, I went to her house and made these brownies from scratch from her copy of this cookbook.  I remember the feeling of being overwhelmed at the book sitting there, waiting to be opened.  The pure size of this book is daunting.  But more, I remember the feeling of pure joy once I opened it, noting that every direction I would need was right there on the page.  The brownies were ready to eat when she got home.  They were my first experience baking anything from scratch, without a box.  Including the frosting.

I bought a copy of the cookbook for myself last week and dived in!  I missed a party on July 4^th because I could not put it down! 

Now that I’m home, it’s back to cooking.  Today I am making Blueberry-Cherry Bread Pudding and Chicken stuffed peppers.  The recipe calls for a jar of blueberry preserves.  I couldn’t bring myself to do that, so I made a pot of my own this morning.  It is quite an odd shift, everything from scratch, but I do like it better.  And it really isn’t much work, now that I have some knowledge under my belt.

I am enjoying this new life, this new joy I have found.  It is simple, but it is the simple things, isn’t it? 

The preserves should be about chilled, it’s time to get to it!