I Can't Cook.... But Please, Don't Tell My Mother

I only bake... I do not cook.
I think it has something to do with my attention span.
Just recently when I tried to bake some cookies - which generally I am quite good at - I came across a couple of problems... missing ingredients, half full measuring cups left on the counter instead of poured into the bowl.
I even forgot to turn on the stove.
Focusing on what needed to be done just didn't seem to be possible.
But then again, who draws on their eggs before cracking them?

Apparently...I do.

I should have been focusing on other more important baking matters.
Or maybe not?
I was having fun in my kitchen, and that my friends does not happen very often.

(oops, I guess I should have added the rest of the flour that's sitting back there minding its own business)

Why, you ask?
I believe I suffer from cooking impair-edness, and I've decided that domestic ADHD might be the culprit.

While I have my hiccups in the kitchen, I feel fairly confident that I will not completely ruin a batch of cookies, even when minor mishaps happen.
It seems so much less intimidating than actually cooking a meal.

With baking, I only have to think about and tackle one dish at a time.  And I enjoy the time.
It involves a recipe that is generally thrown in a bowl.  The bowl is attached to my KitchenAid mixer and voila I have one less thing to focus on.
Someone/thing else does the stirring and I become mesmerized by the whip whapping.

But today as I was watching the cookie dough I had an epiphany.
I realized in my own way I was meditating.

Life became clear to me at the bottom of a cookie dough bowl.

~After a slight narrative I will reveal the epiphany further down this post...please bear with me~

Blog warning: As the owner of this blog I feel free to meander at will

What I have not mentioned is that I come from a long line of good cooks.

My Mom was always able to put something interesting before us on to the table.

We weren't always appreciative but we always had a meal of several dishes before us to try.

She had a lot of cook books and liked to use them.

She was willing to try almost anything.

I took it for granted how much work she went to, to feed us, until I had a family of my own.

Her mother was also a great cook, as was my Dad's mom.

Nothing fancy but always extremely tasty.

Always from the garden, I remember turnips and carrots mashed together with butter, and rhubarb and berries cooking on the stove.

They managed to create simple delicious fare day in and day out.

I on the other hand, did not receive the talent or gene that is required to be a good cook. And I know Mom would get upset with me for saying that because she believes that you can talk yourself into anything and it's simply a matter of trying, or possibly, a matter of having the right cookbook.

And I do get that a veggie side is easy to do, really I do. But it's the three other dishes that I would need to conjure up along side of it, that makes me wake up in a cold sweat at night with strange nightmares.
The nightmares involve food, and they are quite graphic.
For the life of me I can't figure out why? 

So I stick to cookies and on occasion banana bread.

If it requires chocolate chips I figure I can handle it.

For me, cooking a meal is a whole other thing, you need to have a plan, you need to know what comes next, you need to know how long something is cooking and where it is, and how much seasoning it needs, and where you last saw that seasoning, not to mention following several recipes at once.

This I find completely overwhelming, and overwhelmed is pretty much how I feel around 4 PM when I have to figure out what my family needs to eat on any given day. So I stick to baking. And generally I do OK.

The problem with this is, it is frowned upon by the general parenting establishment, to feed your kids chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, cupcakes for lunch and pudding for supper.
If that were allowed or healthy, I would be Mom of the Year.
In fact you would all be perusing my cook book for meal ideas.

But since I do not live in a "dessert for all, all the time" climate, I need to find three or perhaps five ingredient "simple fare" recipes.   That would be ideal.  Two would be even better but since that would probably mean mashed potatoes with salt every day, I doubt my family would be very happy or well nourished.

So in light of the fact that cooking is something I cannot hide from.  I realized I needed to embrace that which I fear.  Thus the epiphany which I mentioned a while back came to me as I meditated.

Baking I love, chocolate I love, cooking I am going to choose to love.

So I have decided to embark on a mission.  A mission, to try and find recipes that I can handle and yet have a taste that far exceeds the effort necessary to prepare it.

I will be creating a section called Good Eats which will enable even the most kitchen challenged mom to look like she knows what she's doing.

You see, I was thinking deep thoughts the other day and I came up with this:
If you look good, you feel good, and if you cook good, you look good, and therefore feel good.

I can't wait to start feeling good!  I've decided to unwrap, and celebrate the cook within!  Are you with me?

 I will be sharing my cooking journey with: 

  

    XO

PS  If by chance you happen to have, or know of a recipe which would fall under the category of beginner and easy peasy with no more than five or so ingredients, that perhaps tastes as though it were the winner of an Iron Chef episode, please leave me the link or directions to the post in the comments section. I may have to send you some chocolate chip cookies as a way to say Thank you.