Wednesday, April 09, 2008

cookbooks

Let me start off by saying that Brandon is a wonderful person for marrying me. Why? I can't cook, and he knows it.

That's not to say that I don't try. I have had a few successes, but it seems that most of my efforts in making a good meal for him fail. I never know what to cook. I get frustrated with the lack of food and the lack of ideas, and he usually ends up making pizza for me.

I feel like this could be remedied with a few good cookbooks. Then I would just have to open a book and find something that looked good. I could get food in advance so that we would actually have things to eat. However, it's been hard to find cookbooks that fit my following stipulations:

1. Lots of pictures. It may be unadventurous, but if I can't see something, it usually doesn't appeal to me.

2. Ingredients that I actually buy. Do you ever find a recipe that looks perfect only to find that it calls for cornish game hen or veal or fennel or brie? I don't even know what half of those things are! Let's stick to chicken and beef, please.

3. Recipes that don't use every dish in my kitchen. I love making pasteis, but they require a pot to boil the milk, a bowl to mix the dough, flour all over my table, a rolling pin, a pot to fry them, a plate to cool them, and a billion paper towels to soak up all the grease. It takes longer to clean up than it does to make them.

If you know of any cookbooks like this, please let me know. I'm really looking for a good main dish book and a breakfast book. Others would be appreciated, too. Bexar, you know you want to help!

5 comments:

Bexie Funk said...

you need the kids cookbook from william sonoma. I'm not trying to make fun of you at all. I like it. Don't worry I have the same needs for a cookbook.

rmreed said...

have you heard of the internet? we get recipes from there all the time. and you can look up similar recipes, compare ingredients, then modify the recipe for your tastes and inventory of food. start with kraft.com, it is a pretty good resource.

Ashley Erin said...

i have a great recipce for crab cakes and orzo-chicken salad. too bad you're still poor. learning new types of food is fun. use the internet. that's the only way brandon won't wither away.

Lindsey said...

Too late, fernash, Brandon's already practically gone.

I do use the internet. The problem with the internet is that you have to already know what you're looking for so you can look it up. What I need are ideas for good meals.

rmreed said...

Use caution when taking cooking advice from Ashley