A New Adventure!

So here I am finally. This blog has been in "production" in my head for a while.

I love food and I have done a lot of eating but not much cooking. That changed about a month and a half ago, though, when my Dad decided to take a long--and well deserved--vacation. I'm ashamed to admit that he cooks most of our family dinners. In fact, when my sisters or I decide to make something, we will let him know ahead of time just in case. All three of us (my sisters and I) are good cooks, but because of time constraints, plain laziness or, more importantly, our reliance on my Dad, we haven't cooked on a consistent basis.

So my Dad is still away as I write this and in the interest of not starving to death I decided to get cooking!

First, a little background on my past culinary experience:
When I was younger, I didn't pay attention to my parent's cooking. I just gladly ate everything they prepared. Anyway, at that point, cooking was not a big interest to me.

During my twenties I would look at some food magazines here and there and would venture to make something that looked great and was simple (in ingredients and technique) to make. All main dishes. These included: Thanksgiving turkey, Chow Mein (Mom's "recipe"), Lemon Chicken, Enchiladas Verdes, Chilaquiles. I'm proud to say that I didn't have to ask my Dad for assistance on these. I felt very accomplished for that reason alone.

As time went by, in addition to making the occasional dish for my family, I cooked for boyfriends. So it was then that in an effort to impress them, I started cooking a bit more. The more good food I turned out, the more encouraged I became to keep on going.

Finally, I also have to point out that I'm a big fan of cooking shows. When I was younger and before The Food Network existed, I watched PBS cooking shows like Yang Can Cook, Julia Child and Jacques Pepin. I watched them cook but I never thought "Oh, I'm going to make that now". It was more like: "Oh, they cook really well, I don't think I can do that!"

Nowadays, cooking shows are everywhere and I'm loyal to PBS' America's Test Kitchen because they always give you the "perfect" recipe that has been tested thousands of times. Or so they say. So far they have a good track record with me. All their recipes have worked the first time!

And then comes the Food Network. Geesh. That's my "go-to" channel if there is nothing else on TV. I watch everything except their weekday shows with Giada, Barefoot Contessa and the like. Boring! I like the nighttime programming better. Throwdown with Bobby Flay is a favorite.

I've gone on for too long, I'll be posting the recipes I used so far and give commentary on them. Hope you enjoy them and prepare them at home!