I’m excited to debut a new set of blogs and a new phase in my life – healthy cooking. While that doesn’t seem like a huge challenge, I do have a couple of hurdles to overcome…
One, I don’t really know how to cook. My mom, God love her, can’t cook her way out of an Easy Bake Oven. I’ve inherited a lot of great traits from her but skills in the kitchen were not up for grabs! I’m good at following recipes to family dishes but they aren’t necessarily healthy and often require cans of Campbell’s soup. What I am eager to learn is how to cook with raw ingredients from the farmer’s market. I’m not very confident at the market and I want to learn more about these “foreign objects” and how to create wonderful dishes on the fly. (Note: I secretly like to imagine myself as a Parisian woman shopping at the market in heels and a beautiful hat, flirting for deals on produce, mais oui!)
My second hurdle is not having a well-stocked kitchen. Until a month ago, I had very primitive tools and usually only cooked substantial meals at my parent’s house on the weekends. I have since invested in some key pieces to round out my kitchen tools and I’m very excited to use one of them for the first time tonight! My All-Clad French Skillet which is so beautiful and gleaming and already makes my little apartment kitchen look that much more “professional”!
Of course, there are other obstacles but I’ve just have to dive in and start tackling recipes! I’ve also purchased a few new cookbooks geared towards healthy & seasonal eating with easy prep. I’m going to challenge myself to make one new dish a week to broaden my skills and try new things. I hope that making a blog out of it will keep me from straying too far from my goals.
Tonight, I started with a shrimp, basil & spinach risotto from Williams-Sonoma’s New Healthy Kitchen cookbook. I LOVE risotto and I’ve never made it before. I must say, it was pretty easy thanks to my new skillet and it tasted super yummy! Here are a few photos from my inaugural outing!
Stay tuned for more adventures coming soon!