Free Time = Cooking Time

Lately I have found some spare time on my hands and decided that I would try to actually learn how to cook. I have always been able to hold my own in the kitchen, but I never felt confident enough to say: "Sure, I can cook." So now, twice a week I head into the kitchen and see what I can do.

I knew that I needed to follow a recipe since "creativity" is not my strong suit, especially not with a new task. I had one English cookbook lying around but I felt like I needed more so I went to Steimatzky's, the Israeli version of Barnes & Nobles. There was not much in the line of cookbooks in English, but there were plenty in Hebrew. Of course, how do I know what to get? After blankly staring at the shelves for a few minutes a salesman came over to me and asked if he could help. I answered hopefully: "Can you find me a cookbook that is easy and fast and good for someone who has no idea what she is doing in the kitchen?" Truthfully, I don't think he had much more experience than I did, but he picked out a few that had titles like "An Entire Meal in 30 Minutes" and "Tasty and Won't Break the Budget." I took one off the shelf and started flipping through. To my amazement I could actually understand it and the recipes looked good, so I took it.

Dealing with the metric-imperial unit conversion is still difficult and I often find myself running to the internet to find out how many grams are in a tablespoon.

Overall, my experiments are turning out well. Carrot Lemon soup, Meatballs with Caribbean Sauce and Eggplant Curry have all been tasty; however, I have no idea how they can advertise as "ready in 30 minutes." Nothing I make takes me less than an hour.

Of course, I have also stumbled along the way, like forgetting to put sugar in the cornbread and have it come out tasting like baking powder or not understanding that when it says 6-8 servings it means that it makes A LOT of food and I will be eating it all week. Thankfully Ariel is easy to please and will eat just about anything.

And so the trials continue- tomorrow is Banana Chocolate cake!