The Little Chef in me...

Anyone who knows me knows two things are an absolute about me 1) I am a coffee girl - specifically Starbucks, but whatever and 2) I can cook.

I love to cook. I love the fact that when I was in 7th grade my parents told me, one hot summer night in Lancaster, California, that from then on out I would pick one night a week (I picked Thursdays) and I would be responsible for dinner. I had to have my grocery list to them for the weekly grocery shopping, and they'd get me anything within reason.

Up to that point my kitchen chores were relegated to cracking the ice, making the salad for dinner, and of course the dishes - which I hated. So I was a bit - as a teeny bopper - not that interested in another chore.

I quickly discovered though that it wasn't so much a chore as it was an outlet. I can't say that I wow'd anyone with new and different recipes. Truth is I only really have memories of cooking some of our family favorites. I do have some vague memory of trying some recipes that mom and dad had stashed away, but for the most part, I played it safe.

Both parents were in the kitchen "helping". In that if I didn't understand, they were there to explain the culinary technique or word I didn't understand. Thankfully both my parents could cook too, which helped groom my love for food.

We all had our specialties. Dad's was the BBQ. He could BBQ a tritip like no body's business. He'd take a tritip roast (back in those days it was a very inexpensive cut of meat too) and he'd cut slits throughout it and stuff those slits with garlic cloves. He'd then BBQ it slow...saliva is pooling in my mouth even as I type. Anything else that could be BBQ'd was. If he could find a way to do spaghetti on the BBQ he would.

Mom's speciality - at least to me - was her tacos and enchiladas. She learned from an old Mexican woman who owned a restaurant in her home town. I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but I can remember going there one time and fully appreciating mom's enchilada history. They aren't glamorous or difficult or anything like that. They certainly aren't lo-cal (and trust me I've tried over the years to make them lo-cal and you just can't. You have to just know that you're going to be eating some calories that night). And being not one for leftovers, mom's enchiladas - cold - the next day...heaven. Blissful heaven.

And so I didn't have a speciality. I tried baking for many years and discovered I had no patients for that. All the exact measuring, blech! I'd leave that to someone else. I can cook though. And I can follow a recipe - sometimes.

What I love about cooking is the fact that it's like a little science experiment each time. Sure I could follow the well developed and tested recipe, but I'm convinced I can improve on it. Anyone who comes to Chez Jenn's knows that I do try to follow the recipe. And yet somehow I decide a dash of this or a pinch of that might make all the difference. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't.

I've told you about the recipe bowl in a couple of previous posts. (Side note: did you know if you misspell previous you can get pervious?) This bowl has about 300 recipes in it. I recently cleaned it out and "re-did" the recipes cuz I knew there were some I had already made and others I'd most likely not make. So I got down to business and started fresh.

So far in the year of 2009 I've made 62 new recipes. Some will make it to my annual cookbook, some won't make it off the page ever again. I have tried to make it my goal to document this experience too and to make these recipes available to everyone. This week I had two fantastic recipes that I feel I have to share.

Chicken Curry in a Hurry and my favorite Slow Roasted Salmon.

I posted a stat counter and realized not too many people are hitting my cooking blog, which is fine, it's not just out there for the world to see, but it's out there for me to go back to when I wonder when it was I last made a recipe...or if - god forbid - I can't find the recipe.

My routine has been to make about 3 new recipes a week. If you're ever bored with what you're making...check out my cooking blog. I'm sure there's something you can find there. I can't guarantee everything will be lo-cal but I can at least guarantee it's been tested by one of the greatest unknown chef's in the free world. At least in her own mind. Now if I can only find someone to do the dishes.