Crafty in the Kitchen

I don't really enjoy cooking.  I'm capable, I just don't enjoy it. I get it from my mom . . . who got it from her mom.  It's just not our thing.  Luckily The Pilot seems to enjoy cooking so most of the time when he's around, he will make dinner.  Sometimes it's fancy, sometimes not.  We try not to eat out more than once a week.  Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don't.

With the chaos of the move, I'm surprised to tell you we still managed to eat at home more often than not.  There were certainly several pizza runs during the moving process but we are back on track.  Now that we have a huge (to us anyways) kitchen and brand new appliances, it certainly makes cooking a lot easier than when we were in the condo.  I've even stepped up a little and have cooked some recently....and nearly burned the kitchen down.

A fellow pilot wife and blogger shared her love of a grill pan quite a while ago and all of her dishes looked so pretty and colorful.  This led me to make one kitchen-related request when it came to choosing items for our wedding registry last year, a grill pan.  Unfortunately after the wedding, the grill pan had to go into storage because there wasn't anywhere to put it in our tiny kitchen.  But that thing is out of the box and in a kitchen cabinet finally!

Recently I cut up some vegetables (onion, red bell pepper, zucchini and squash) and made a seasoning mix to rub the veggies with prior to putting them on the grill pan.  I found a recipe online but didn't have all of the ingredients so I kind of made it up as I went.  There was some soy sauce, garlic, olive oil, some other random things I found.  I should have my own show on the Food Network.

Look how pretty they looked prior to grilling!

I was doing really well until the last few veggies were grilling.  The Pilot came into the kitchen and immediately went "woah!"  In a matter of seconds, the kitchen filled with smoke.  Oops.  I think I ran out of oil in my pan and it started to smoke really bad.  It's a good thing we are planning to refinish the kitchen cabinets because I was well on my way to having a smoked kitchen.  Once the fan was on and a few windows were opened, we were back in business.

Yum!  

I'm not so great when it comes to meal planning.  I can barely get one item prepared let alone multiple pieces so my grilled veggies were served with a side of.....garlic bread.  Again, Food Network, here I come!  I thought was good.  The Pilot enjoyed it as well but said I probably shouldn't make it again because he had to clean up my grease mess.  (Typically when one cooks the meal, the other cleans up.)

Another item that has been holed up in the basement because our kitchen was so small was my beloved crepe maker.

I bought this thing in 1998 (no, I don't remember this off the top of my head.  For some reason, I left the receipt in the box.) when I was still in high school.  I was in the French Club and we had a "crepe making party".  I was so cool.  Anyways, despite lack of use over the years, I just couldn't bear to part with it.  I kept telling myself that once I had a bigger kitchen and could actually keep it IN the kitchen, I would use it.  When The Pilot moved in and we were making space for his things, he asked if we could get rid of it.  Nope.  Not going to happen.  You know, sentimental feelings for an appliance and all.

I brought the poor crepe maker back into the light and made a batch the other night.  I even had the copy of the recipe from my high school French teacher still in the box.  One slight problem is that its been 13+ years since I've made crepes and I forgot that the batter needed to sit for at least an hour before using.  Crap.  Out came my appetizer to tide us over until it was ready....pretzels.  FOOD NETWORK!

Finally, a 1/2 bag of pretzels and one hour later, I was in business.  I started cranking out the crepes while sauteing some spinach on the stove.  One reason for the recent interest in making crepes is because of this food cart.  I encoutered it twice earlier this year and the simple spinach and feta crepe made my mouth water.  Surely I could recreate it, right?  FOOD NETWORK!

I had the crepes (albeit smaller than Leslie's), I had the spinach and I had the feta.  Did I recreate it?  Not at all.  Don't worry, Leslie's, you aren't going to have any competition anytime soon.  While it was certainly edible, it just wasn't the same.  Oh well.  We did however have a large stack of crepes to play with.

A million years ago, I went to France with one of the high school teachers and some of my dear friends.  I have a very fond memory of ordering crepes from a street vendor in Paris.  I ordered just a plain sugar crepe and it was soooo good.  So good in fact that when I accidentally dropped it in the subway station, I picked it up and kept on eating.  I was classy even at 17.  Anyways, I was about to make myself a sugar crepe when I remembered that we had Nutella (generic of course) and bananas.  Score.  The Pilot and I then proceeded to stuff our faces with Nutella and banana crepes.  My new favorite thing.  I didn't even have to drop it on the floor to enjoy it.

And in case you are wondering what The Pilot does when I'm cooking up these gourmet meals?  He likes to train the cats so they can run away with the circus some day.

I'm on top of the world!!

And now for my double layout.

The dismount needs some work.