So, if you hadn’t noticed I kinda fell off the bandwagon with cooking everyday. In fact, everyday might have been a bit ambitious when you’re faced with temptations like going out for brunch with your friends on Saturday and having yummy leftovers in your fridge that you want to eat instead of making something new. But the point is not giving up! Right? Right.

Tonight’s dish was Spinach-Artichoke Cheesy Tortellini which came out of Rachael Ray’s Express Lane Meals. It was pretty simple thing to make, though I wish I’d have chopped the onion rather than using the grater like she’s suggested because it came out being onion mush and I would have preferred bigger chunks honestly, and I wish I’d thought to chop the artichokes before I started cooking because it felt like a race against time and I should have added some more salt, but otherwise it went rather smoothly.

In terms of eating, I’m of mixed opinion. It was a LOT of spinach and well… I’m a vegetable eating novice. I made it about halfway through my dinner and my stomach said, “If you eat any more of that green stuff, I am so going to projectile vomit over your keyboard.”

So, I ended up picking my way around the spinach for about half of my dinner. It wasn’t that it wasn’t good… but apparently that’s a thing that happens if you’re not used to eating veggies (or at least that’s what Phil tells me).

Leftover wise, a ton of it. I have an entire serving of tortellini for tomorrow plus an extra service of sauce which my plan is pretty much to use as dipping sauce with chips over the next few days.

I’m not sure I’ll try this recipe again for awhile, but it wasn’t all bad either.

I spent most of my life hating chili. Or at least, thinking that I hate chili. I’m not really sure to be honest… and I think that’s the truth of most picky eaters that remain picky into adulthood. I think there’s a point where some of us just give up and stop trying new things and just sticking to what we know is safe because… you know.. it’s safe.

I just know that chili was something my mother made every so often and while I liked the smell of it, actually eating it was another matter all together. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I think nights like chili night were the the times when I usually ended up eating spaghetti instead as a kid.

I discovered that I might actually like chili when my friend Linda had made a batch of it before Christmas and sent me home with some… and I just couldn’t stop eating it. It was so good!

Now, chili was something that I thought was an all day ordeal until I was reading the recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook which gave instructions for both a 20 minute version and a cook it for eight hours version. I had been somewhat prepared to cook it for eight hours, but upon further investigation those directions were for the recipe doubled so I figured… ehh… what the fuck, if I can make it in 20 minutes, I should try that.

The edible results? Well, they were about what I expected. You most certainly can cook an edible chili in 20 minutes, however your peppers and beans aren’t the melt in your mouth consistency that you get from having cooked the chili for eight hours.

I went a little heavy on the green peppers… partly because I like green peppers and partly because I didn’t read the recipe very carefully, seemed to work out fine… and I probably would have opted to put a tad less chili pepper in next time. I do tend to like things spicy so I went for the maximum recommendation… It was a little much, but at least my sinuses are getting cleared out.

Oh and some queso on top? Perfecto.

And, on top of that… there’s leftovers which I can freeze and eat in the future! Woo!

One of the results of that last post was my friend litwol set forth a challenge to inspire me to actually you know… cook things.

His comment on my last post:

All right. I’ll bite (ha!). I throw a 2 week challenge at you. Get it done and I’ll cover big healthy food shopping sprint at the end of it .

rules:
* Daily blogging what you tried, what you accomplished, and challenges .
* At least one Daily custom made meal (and none of that microwavable stuff).
* [optional] Bonus points if you invite friends over for own cooked meal (Maybe starting second week, after you had some practice (: )

So, today’s day one.

Tonight’s dish was linguine in peanut sauce. I didn’t stray from my old standard of pasta, but I’d never actually made a peanut sauce before and I’m pretty sure the only time I’ve ever had a peanut sauce ever is at a Thai restaurant and considering that I love me some peanut butter, I figured it was a fair shot of me liking it.

The recipe came from the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook and combined peanut butter, chicken stock, soy sauce, lime juice, red pepper and garlic.

First of all, I was excited because for a person who doesn’t cook all that much, I have some pretty nifty kitchen gadgets and high end cookware. Since minced garlic was in the recipe, I got to pull out my awesome garlic mincer.

My camera nearly bought it three times in the process of making this meal, which means I need to stop trying to take pictures of every step and put the camera away, I’m sure… but I did get a really awesome shot of peanut butter.

The sauce was actually pretty dead simple to make. It didn’t take me any longer to make this dish than it would have to make spaghetti with sauce from a store bought jar, the only real difference was I wasn’t sitting down to surf the Internet while the pasta boiled because I was busy making the sauce.

And then the finished dish… well… in the pan, anyway.

I half wonder if it would have been better with natural peanut butter and I sorta wish I’d been paying attention to the recipe before I went shopping and noticed that it had said low sodium soy sauce, because in the end it did seem like the sauce was just a hair too salty… I also think next time I ought to make it with chicken and some veggies because truth be told, just peanut sauce and pasta is pretty damn boring, it could have certainly used some variety… but, baby steps. I’ll get to conquering cooking meat. Soon.

Tomorrow… chili.