My Kitchen Redux: Episode II - Revenge of the Wisk

The month of May was spent trying out a new hobby that I've been meaning to pick up: cooking. For a few weeks there, I was actually doing OK when it came to cooking my own meals. While I wasn't Tyler Florence by the end of the month, I did make some eatable dishes.

Then everything went to Hell in a handbasket once June hit. I went two whole months with little to no cooking. There were a few times I made some Hamburger Helper, but I don't think that really qualifies as cooking. I just ran out of steam and motivation, and once again got caught up in the convenience of dining or carrying out.

As August begins (or has just begun), once again I'm making it my goal to cook more often. I've actually been saving some recipes I've found online, so at least now I have some go-tos at my disposal, which will make it easier to decide what's for dinner.

I actually liked cooking for myself, and I do want to make it a habit, but it's so easy to drive by Panda Express to pick up some orange chicken...and it's so tasty. OK, enough of that. I'm serious this time.

My Cooking Experiment Take 2

At the beginning of the month I blogged about my goal of cooking more, and with May coming to a close, I'm evaluating whether or not my experiment was a success. On one hand I did cook a lot more this month than ever before, but my enthusiasm for the culinary arts waned towards the end.

Also, I really didn't come across a recipe that blew my mind. Everything I cooked was tasty enough, but nothing I'd add to my list of go-to recipes, but I have had fun trying out new ideas. Right now, my tastes have been leaning more towards Mediterranean cuisine and stir-fries, but I'm trying to branch out. If anyone has favorite recipes to share, please pass them along.

The biggest drawback to this experiment continues to be spending money on food that ends up not being used. I've been trying to string along some recipes with common ingredients to cut down on the waste, but there are somethings that just end up sitting around like Greek style yogurt and various produce. I've always been hesitant to cook for this exact reason. I just need to figure out how to utilize my groceries better, but it's not easy to do so when you're a novice like myself.

With June right around the corner, I'm going to give this cooking deal one more shot to see if it will stick. So far, I've gained a sense of accomplishment when I have food I prepared myself sitting in front of me, but those feelings haven't outweighed the guilt of wasting food and money that's come along with it. Again, I'm sure I'll get the hang of things as time goes on, but I just hope it doesn't take too long.

My Kitchen: Week 2

Week 2 of my little cooking experiment was not as successful as my first one, mostly due to the fact that I didn't end up cooking as much as I wanted to. Out of the three meals I had planned, I was only able to get to two of them.

Last week I wasn't able to make up the Greek-style turkey burgers I had planned, so I made them on Sunday. They had a decent flavor to them, but the yogurt sauce was essentially a poor man's tzatziki. If I make them again, I'll definitely grill them instead of pan-frying like I was supposed to. Meal 2 was a chicken curry stir-fry with brown rice. I'll definitely make that one again once I figure out how to properly make brown rice. Every time I try to make it, even instant, I end up messing something up.

This week's menu will have the sesame chicken stir-fry that I wasn't able to get to, pizza joes, and maybe some kind of pasta dish, either a bow-tie or orzo since I still have some left over. I do have a creamy asparagus chicken with bow-tie and Mediterranean chicken with rosemary orzo recipe bookmarked. I do have to make up for lost time...

My Kitchen: Week 1

So, I finally put my money where my mouth is and actually cooked for myself last week, and I have to say that the first week of my experiment was somewhat of a success. I still ended up going out to eat more than I would've liked, but that's because it's hard to break old habits.

Last week's menu consisted of three meals that were pretty straight forward and easy. Monday night I cooked up turkey sausage skillet with asparagus and orzo. It had nice flavor, and it's something I'll definitely try again. Unfortunately, I didn't cook again until Friday when I made a bow-tie pasta with chicken, bell peppers, and a little bit of green onion. Again, it was tasty enough, but I still have a long way to go. I was supposed to make Greek-style turkey burgers as well, but that recipe was put off until this week.

I'm still trying to put together another menu for this week, and I have some ideas, but one is kind of ambitious. The last couple of week's I've been obsessed with a Vietnamese sandwich called a banh mi. It's served on a Vietnamese baguette with assorted fillings, and the nearest place I can find one is in Austin. While Austin is not that far of a drive, I'm not willing to take that much time for a sandwich, so I'm going to try making my own. The thing is, they are more time consuming than I originally thought, so I'm putting that idea on the back burner for now. I am excited about tackling the banh mi though.

Right now, I'm thinking that this week I'll go for a stir-fry theme by making a sesame chicken stir-fry as well as a curried turkey version as well. I just hope I have better motivation this time around, and I stick to cooking more than eating out. I guess only time will tell. If anyone has any recipes they'd like to share, please let me know. I'm always keeping an eye out for new ideas.

My New Hobby: Cooking

For the longest time I've been meaning to pick up cooking, but I've always find reasons not to. I keep convincing myself that it's too expensive to cook at home, I'm too busy to shop for and fix meals, it's too much of a hassle to cook just for myself, and so forth and so on.

Obviously, all of my excuses are full of crap because they really don't hold much weight (with the exception of the cost argument, but if you cook right it should be that much more expensive), and I'm tired of making them. The thing is, there really isn't anything stopping me from picking up how to cook except for my laziness, and I do like to cook, so I just need to find the motivation to do so.

Over the weekend, I picked up some food magazines and nutrition guides to convince me to bust out of my rut and start cooking more. I know that it's a small step, but it's a start. With May just starting, my goal is to spend more time in the kitchen, and less time wasting money on food that's not good for me to begin with. Plus, it'll be good to have a few stand by recipes in my back pocket just in case I do meet a nice, young lady. Chick's dig a man that can cook...and puppies.

My Reason for Blogging

About a month ago, I wrote an entry about how I've come down with a case of writer's block when it comes to blogging about my personal life. I wrote about how I wanted to keep this blog as angst-free as possible, but I ultimately end up writing about the same subjects over and over again.

Recently, I've been trying to read other blogs for inspiration, and it started to become clear that the blogs that get the most attention tend to have a purpose behind them. Some people want to share all of the relationship ups and downs while others wax poetically about the world around them. Others like to share funny anecdotes about life, and so forth and so on. I also started to notice that some people take their blogs seriously, and they plot out and develop specific posts for specific reasons. After thinking about it, I realized that my blog really doesn't have a purpose or a direction.

I've never claimed to be a real blogger, and it shows after reading what others are putting out there. I started out blogging because I thought it'd be neat to share random thoughts that came to me or if something really interesting happened to me. For me blogging has always been a stream of consciousness medium where things just kind of come out. I've never really sat down and tried to come up with a thought provoking post much less write up a draft. Usually, I just sit down and start typing away.

Now, I could try to be cool and take the approach that I blog for me, and I don't care if others get what I'm trying to say, but that'd be a total lie. If I didn't want my blog to say something to others, then this would be a private journal. The thing is, I don't know what I want it to say.

I still don't think my life is interesting enough to share with the entire world, but if I don't then I have nothing to write about. I could spend countless hours writing about how many times I've missed out on love or about the one that got away, but I don't want to be that guy. Maybe I should just focus all of my time and energy on my entertainment blog since I always have something to write for that one, but there has to be more to life than TV and movies. I want what I write to matter...I just need to figure out to whom.

My Getaways: The Great Outdoors

I don't consider myself to be an outdoorsy kind of person, and this was proven during my time in Portland. I was the guy who thought it'd be OK to camp-out with nothing but a bed sheet during an Oregon summer (trust me, it gets cold at night up there). I'm also the guy who saw two of his buddies almost float down a river while being stuck in the middle of the water holding two fishing poles (wading was a foreign concept to me at the time, and still is). To be honest, I'm surprised I survived living up in Oregon.

While I'm not the world's greatest survivalist, I did develop a respect for the outdoors, and my interest in being more in tuned with nature was sparked while living in Portland. Plus, now I have a ton of camping stuff that I'd like to use more than once, so the thought of a camping road trip sounds mighty fine right about now.

A colleague of mine at Texas State mentioned that she once went on a camping tour de force that took her from Lubbock, TX through northern New Mexico and Arizona, down and over, and then back up. Honestly, her story prompted my urge to rough it for a few weeks, but I'd extend the trip.

Ideally, I'd start out in Big Bend, TX and work my way up north through New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. Then I'd hook a left towards the Pacific Coast which would take me through parts of Idaho and Washington. Down the coast through my old stomping ground and NorCal before cutting right to hit up Nevada and Utah. Then I'd travel through Arizona, back across New Mexico and my old home of West Texas, which brings me back to Central Texas.

Of course I'd be camping, hiking, and fishing the entire time...you know, like men do. Now, I just need to learn how to do those things or at least have a guide that would keep me from freezing my ass off. Either way.

My New Goal

For some reason, I've never been one for hobbies outside of dabbling in writing from time to time, but there is one thing that I'd like to learn and master: surfing.

About a year ago, I was in Hawaii visiting family, and while on Maui we checked out the little town of Pāʻia, which is famous for its windsurfing. While looking out at the water, I couldn't help but feel like I belonged there, which sparked my interest in picking up surfing.

My trip to Hawaii not only made me want to learn a new sport, but it also made me realize how much I love being by the water, and how the beach bum lifestyle would suit me.

I used to joke about running off to Mexico to sell t-shirts on the beach to tourists, but the more I think about, the more appealing that vocation sounds. Hawaii has plenty of tourists that need t-shirts, and I could earn some cash to pay for surfing lessons. It's all coming together...