My mom’s generation had Betty Crocker and Julia Child for culinary guidance. I have Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray. I can’t afford to make the kind of food Martha does and Rachel, for some reason, really annoys me. Therefore, I’m left alone in my small kitchen to sort out recipes, measurements and find my inner domestic diva. Yikes!
Usually, I consider cooking making a grilled cheese sandwich or scrambled eggs. But, let’s be honest, even a cave man could make those things. Sorry, to my cave men readers, but you know it’s true.
Even though I lack in the cooking guru department, I thought I would try my best to prepare some homemade meals this past weekend. I chose to make a bacon and spinach quiche and lasagna. Parish’s dad, God love him, supplies us with farm fresh eggs by the 18-pack. Which is the main reason I decided to make a quiche, we have over 40 eggs in our fridge and Easter is a month away. I lugged out my cookbook, dusted it off and found a recipe for “quick quiche.” Perfect!
Although eggs are the main ingredient for the popular breakfast dish, I had to drop by the supermarket and get bacon, spinach and hash browns for the crust. You can use a pie crust, but I’m not a fan. I prefer to make a crust using hash browns – it makes the quiche less heavy and I think, a little healthier.
I find fresh baby spinach on sale and after a 12-minute search, semi-lean bacon. While at Kroger’s, I pick up the ingredients for lasagna-ground turkey, two jars of spaghetti sauce, cottage cheese and a box of wide, flat noodles. For the first time, in a long time, I was actually excited about cooking. Parish should have taken a picture, because my domesticity comes in waves – the kind of waves that are very few and far between.
I successfully chopped my spinach and bacon, then gingerly added the ingredients to my whisked eggs. Before that step, I baked the hash browns in a pie dish. I finally set my precious little egg dish in the oven. Less than an hour later, I pulled the quiche out and did a knife check in the middle to make sure it was completely cooked. The knife came out clean and I smiled. Parish had the first bite and said it was great. I smiled again. I rewarded myself with a nap.
After getting my beauty rest, I walked straight to the kitchen and prepared the lasagna. Again, I followed the recipe, well most of the recipe. In the past, I’ve never cooked the noodles first. This method has always worked for me, so I made layers with the uncooked noodles, sauce, cottage cheese and repeated this step until the dish was full. My creation had all the signs of a good meal; it looked and smelled so good. Well, looks can be deceiving, when I took the dish out, some of the noodles were not cooked all the way through. I was very upset! I put the lasagna back into the oven for an additional 20 minutes. In the end, we did eat it, but there were some noodles we couldn’t fight our way through. My lovely husband put his arm around me and said, “You know I didn’t marry you for your cooking skills, right?” Thanks.
Obviously, this domestic diva in training still has a lot to learn.
