I Cook Like a Boss (For Reals)

Cooking for one (or two) is an art that isn't exactly easy to master. I have to half nearly every recipe that I make which means a bunch of bothersome 1/4 cup plus two tablespoons type measurements which are extremely tiresome.

This weekend I did a fair bit of cooking. For dinner yesterday there was roast chicken. That was interesting because first the chicken was mostly frozen when I put it in. It took probably near two hours to cook, I was afraid that the carrots that I threw into the roast pan would be too cooked after all of that but it actually turned out pretty well! (I am definitely making a note to be more proactive in defrosting my chicken from here on out, though. It cooks better and tastes better too.) That was all I was going to make and then my husband who had been insisting that he was not hungry suddenly became hungry and wanted corn and mashed potatoes to eat as well. Being the sweet and loving wife that I am I found some canned corn and some 99¢ frozen mashed potatoes in the freezer and added them onto the meal. I personally love cooking whole chickens, I can buy one for $5 and feed the two of us for 2-3 meals.

Today I wiped up some quick taco meat. I used about four pounds of ground beef, some onion, and put in two packets of taco seasoning, that is only enough seasoning for two pounds but it was all I had. I put in some diced tomato and separated the mix into five Ziploc baggies. Pair this with Nacho Cheese Doritoes and some sour cream, maybe some cheese too, and I have a easy and delicious meal for either work or for dinnner after a day at work.

I made Pioneer Woman's lasasgna after that. I made some tweeks, though, obviously! I eliminated the sausage, eggs, and some of the seasoning just because I didn't have the sausage, eggs sounded weird, and I was lazy. I also used tomato sauce instead of canned tomatoes because canned tomatoes are completely Satonic. Unfortunately I bought about twice as much cheese as I needed and had to throw out about half the noodles because I cooked the whole box but only needed about half the box. Oops. Remember what I said about having issues with cooking for one? The lasagna turned about pretty delicious, regardless. I had some for dinner and I have leftovers for either lunch or dinner the rest of the week!

I also used my new KitchenAid stand mixer to make a chocolate cake. I am on the hunt for the perfect chocolate cake. This time I used the recipe on the back of the Hershey's cocoa container. I am still on the hunt, the recipe was not near up to par. Speaking of my stand mixer, I love it except that I am having a hard time with getting the attachment to thoroughly mix the batter. It needs to be scraped so much that it almost isn't worth it. Their is instructions in the manual on how to adjust the beater to fix this. I am going to give it a try and hope I can improve the performance of the machine. Outside of this, I love my KitchenAid!

Last of all, I ran across Bakerella's recipe for Hummingbird Cake today. It looks like heaven. OMG.