For some reason I don't write too much about my cooking, but perhaps I'll start.
I've been doing a great deal of cooking. Alton Brown's books are incredible for learning how to cook, not what to cook. Don't get me wrong, there are some tasty recipes, but most of the book is devoted to teaching yo different methods of cooking. I've read through it a couple times now. He's taught me proper sauteing technique, gotten me to be a better searer, and has made me a huge fan of frying my own food.
Tonight I made a baked polenta dish. I made and set polenta (I did this on Sunday to save time), made my soon-to-be-patented tomato sauce, cooked up a cream sauce with gorgonzola and spinach, layered everything in a casserole dish, baked it for forty minutes, and finished in the (gas (swoon)) broiler. Everything was a bit more wet than I would have liked, but pretty tasty. I also took the leftover bits of polenta, oiled them, and through them in my getting-to-be-awesome cast iron pan. This went on the top rack of the oven (the casserole was on the center) and in an hour I had delicious polenta chips.
The polenta dish was a variation on a recipe I found in a great vegetarian book, but I've always been pretending to be a chef and whipping up my own dishes. Last night I used my already-awesome immersion blender to make a tasty pea and corn soup. I through a couple cloves of garlic in a pot with some hot oil. After a couple minutes I added a can of vegetable stock and some water. Once everything was boiling I put frozen peas and corn (two to one in favor of peas) and a little rosemary. Once things had gotten back up to a boil I suddenly realized there was a clever way to get rid of the parmesan regiano rind that so often goes to wast. I bit it into a few chunks (stuff is too hard for a knife) and tossed it in with everything else. I added some chili sauce and reached for my immersion blender. The blender made short work even of the cheese rind, and in no time I had everything purred to a nice consistency.
That's just one of the adventures in cooking I've had of late. I find it incredibly relaxing. Hank the Dog isn't doing so well these days (he's regressed after making lots of progress in late January and February), I got rejected from University of Illinois, and I had some strange health problems last week. I've needed the relaxation of cooking lately. It just makes me feel better.
