So my cooking skills are definitely improving—I only made one blunder (well, actually two) in my cooking endeavors in quarantine.
The first blunder: I was following a recipe for chicken and rice, with chicken broth and the whole shebang. I cut up a raw chicken breast, started cooking it in a pan on the stove, and about halfway done, I realized: that doesn’t look like enough chicken. The recipe called for a pound so I had guesstimated from a package of around eight chicken breasts; I didn’t have a kitchen scale.
I did what any person in my position would do: I moved the cooked chicken to another part of the stove, and prepped to cook four more chicken breasts: chop of the meat, add minced garlic clove, and put into another pan to cook.
When that batch was almost done, I added in the cooled chicken. The rice was easy (it was instant rice, not going to lie) and while my husband loved it, I thought the taste was off.
The next time I made it I used the same recipe, minus the chicken broth, and added cream of broccoli and cheese soup to the rice mix. Now that tasted good.
I tried another night with cream of cheddar and let me tell you there is a reason that was the only cream soup I could find at the grocery store on our latest run: it tastes bland. But my husband fixed that by adding spices to it—after that it was acceptable.
I have also gotten the hang of pasta and made homemade hamburger helper—that was yummy. I cheat a little bit making the pasta—you’re supposed to add so much water, but I just dump the noodles into the pot, fill it up with water until all the noodles are covered, add salt, and stick it on the stove until I like the way the noodles taste. This is my favorite thing to make right now.
Oh, and my proudest accomplishment so far: I made homemade banana bread! The loaves didn’t rise fully like they should have, but it tastes yummy, and I’ve been having a slice or two for breakfast this past week.
I am definitely getting the hang of this cooking thing, but I still can’t grill meat to save my life.
Oh, and the other blunder, you may ask: I made peanut butter cookies and accidentally left them in the oven for too long while I was surfing social media, and they got a little burnt. Now they are nice and crunchy sitting on my counter. Not the most terrible thing in the world, but as a big fan of gooey cookies I was a little disappointed.
What have you cooked lately?