One Thing I LOVE

In an effort to be not a downer and keep this far from just about running, I figured I'd discuss something I LOVE today: COOKING!

 

This weekend, since we went to a different church, we were not able to meet our normal lunch group for Sunday Dinner. That meant that I got to cook. I love to cook. Correction: I love to cook long, involved, crazy hard meals and have them turn out right. I hate cooking during the week. I hate coming up with 30 minute meals. I don't enjoy the stress of coming home at 6:30, running for an hour, and having to throw something together so we can eat SOON. BECAUSE OTHERWISE I'LL STARVE.

 

Sunday was sort of a balance of these two kinds of meals. I had ingredients I had to use up, but I had time to figure out something decent to do with them. I had these tortellinis in the fridge that I had to use soon. Plus I had some store brand pasta sauce. Plus I had a pound of ground beef. So, I browned the ground beef, added it to the pasta sauce. Boiled the tortellini. Then I realized we didn't have any bread. So I used a trick I learned in my knife skills class! I got a clove of garlic and chopped it up as fine as I could. Then I sprinkled some kosher salt on it and rubbed my knife over it until I got a nice paste. Then I mixed it in with some butter and spread it really thick over the top of some old, stale hot dog buns. Topped with mozzarella cheese, put on my pizza stone, and baked for about 6 minutes and broiled for 3 more. Can I just say it was SO GOOD. I'm never using store bought garlic bread again. Mmmm. The tortellini wasn't bad either. :)

 

I think my love of cooking is what is going to also drive my future beer making love. Mixing things together, applying the right methods and heat, and having the end product be something really great that you can share and consume is so rewarding. I love when I make something really delicious and get to feed it to other people. Plus, the beer making is going to really be fun because of all the variations that are possible. We're thinking of starting in one gallon batches so that we can try a lot more styles and brew more often. I'm really looking forward to it. Squee!