This Week’s Cooking Plans

Disclaimer: This post was started early Thursday afternoon and completed Thursday evening. I kept the “stream of consciousness” style so that you can see how my brain actually works when it comes to deciding what to make each week. Sometimes dealing with over 1000 recipes and a dozen cookbooks gets to be overwhelming.

Well, here we are. Friday….again.

Personally, this week was a little tough for me. The weather didn’t help much either. The lack of sun really starts to get to me after two days.

So, I’m looking forward to spending some time in the kitchen this afternoon preparing a tasty meal. I also decided to give Ina’s dessert recipes a little break. No desserts from her books this week, if any dessert is made at all.

That said, I still want to try to do two or three recipes this week.

I am thinking of branching out of my comfort zone and attempting some elegant and very gourmet.

After reviewing Barefoot in Paris yesterday, I realized that I haven’t made any of those recipes yet. So I’m thinking of doing Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic.

But then, when I looked over the recipe I realized that this chicken dish will feed a small army. We would have too many leftovers. So, it was back to paging through books to find a recipe that would work.

Which proved to be a bit of a challenge. We had fish already this week, chicken, lasagne, and pot pies. We also had a leftovers night which just repeated those dishes again. I am also hesitant to do anything with beef and lamb. The beef because I’m not a huge fan of it and the lamb because, well….the fear of the unknown. I’ve never had lamb.

After paging through Barefoot in Paris, I realized that it wasn’t going to happen this week. Nothing seemed easy and interested me. So, I picked a few books at random and thumbed through those. Soon enough, I found a recipe in How Easy is That?

Weeknight Bolognese for the win!

Bolognese is a meat sauce that is fairly common in Northern Italy. It’s an easy sauce to make and since it has meat (beef) in it, it helps fill you up.

(Disclaimer: I’m not opposed to beef in its ground form. Hamburgers, meatloafs, meatballs, etc are all OK in my book!)

I decided to use De Cecco pasta since it was on sale this week and use the called for pasta shape. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!

Since I’ve settled on this pasta dish, there will be no side dish or salad from Ina’s books to go with it. And as I’ve mentioned earlier, I won’t be making a dessert this weekend…from Ina that is.

I stumbled upon an amazing cake recipe that I just had to try! That review and write-up will be posted as well, however under a different category entitled “Other Recipes.”

Ina’s pasta sauce recipe will drop on Saturday and the cake recipe will be released on Sunday.

Enjoy the weekend!

The Woes of a Cook-Through Blog Part 1

It’s been about a month since I started this project. So far, I am enjoying it. I have learned some things about cooking and purchasing ingredients. I also got to add a few tools to the kitchen during the process.

However, there have been some downsides.

This is starting to get really expensive! I spend anywhere from $30 to $75 a week on the groceries needed to make the recipes. Yes, sometimes that means more than one recipe, but still.

Also, I am coming to the realization that I am “neglecting” certain categories. Mainly the cocktails and the appetizers. The cocktails always posed a challenge since I am not one who consumes alcohol for pleasure. The appetizers are difficult to make for a meal since they weren’t intended to be a meal. I suppose I could plan a meal of just appetizers, but I feel like that would be more costly than it’s worth.

I feel like if I was having parties or family gatherings, then I could easily mix in some of these recipes, but with the COVID pandemic, that won’t be happening anytime soon.

Eventually, I will have to make both cocktails and appetizers. But for now, I’ll stick to the desserts, dinner, and lunch categories. Luckily, there are hundreds of recipes between those three groups to choose from.

So Many Recipes, So Many Decisions!

Well, it’s Wednesday already! How can that be?

I was lucky enough to get away earlier this week for a mini-vacation. I went to one of the casinos in my state and stayed overnight. Luckily I didn’t lose too much money.

But Wednesday is usually the day when I start thinking about which recipes I want to make for the week. I’m feeling kind of blah this week, despite the little getaway, so I’m thinking something sweet is a requirement.

I am also considering grouping two or three additional recipes together to make a meal again…I’m thinking a pasta dish as the main course?

Thoughts….?

Pasta is usually my go-to when I’m feeling a little off. But if I do pasta, I probably won’t need side dishes with that.

Unless, I make a salad as a “first course” with the pasta. . . .

See what I mean?

So many decisions.

Almost too many.

I’ll be posting my review of Ina’s third cookbook tomorrow afternoon, so keep your eyes peeled for that! Friday you will find out what I will be making that day and over the weekend I’ll post my reviews of the recipes I make.

Stay tuned for more fun!

This Week’s Cooking

Hello Readers!

I have been busy reading my way through Ina’s newest book, Modern Comfort Food, and I’ve decided that the recipes I make this week will come from that book. I am making dinner for the family tonight and may even squeeze in a dessert recipe over the weekend.

Look out for some recipe reviews coming at you later this weekend!

I can’t wait to try out the new cookbook. It really is beautiful and modern, in more ways than one!

A Little Disappointed…

Sadly, even though I pre-ordered Ina’s new cookbook, which comes out TODAY (!!!), it will not be delivered until tomorrow. So….tomorrow’s post will contain my excitement and first-look review.

I’ve had this happen before with Amazon pre-orders….even though they SAY it’ll come on release date, it hasn’t lately. Oh well, life goes on. #firstworldproblems

Cookbook Analysis

As I’ve been going through each one of Ina’s cookbooks to enter the recipes into my spreadsheets, I’ve come to the conclusion that I think I’m going to analyze each of them. I’d discuss the complexities of the recipes and how each one seems to have their own special “tone.”

So, I plan to do one each week starting next week for the next 12 weeks. I will probably go in order of publication. So next week I will discuss The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.

Another thing I’ve noticed as I’ve been inputting these recipes — there’s a lot!

Well….I knew that. After all the number appears in the heading of this site. But now it just seems so overwhelming.

*sigh*

But I’m up for the challenge! And I hope you’re ready for the journey.

Today, I am planning to make at least one other recipe. Not sure what or from which book, but the wheels are turning. Stay tuned!

Cheers!

Cooking and Food Thoughts

There are days when I love my job. And by “my job,” I mean my day job. I work with the public. But it’s not always bad. If I’m kept busy, it’s great and the time goes by quickly. If I’m not too busy, then the days begin to drag and my thoughts start to wander.

And that’s what’s been happening lately. My thoughts are beginning to wander throughout the day. Those wandering thoughts are often related to this project and to be honest, I couldn’t be happier with that. Some of the thoughts deal with “What am I going to make next?” “When can I buy [insert item?” “Should I spend enough money to fill my gas tank on vanilla extract or just use the one in the grocery store?

I end up having so many thoughts that I’m actually surprised when it’s time to go home.

Does anyone else wish their day job was food-blogging related? Sometimes I do.

Ina & Raspberries

In order to help me keep track of recipes and so that I can get a sense of what I would need to purchase equipment-wise, I have begun the process of making a list of off the recipes by book. One of the things that I have noticed, even after only completing three of her cookbooks, is that Ina must LOVE raspberries!

It seems like there are at least 10 different recipes calling for them among these three books. There may even be more than 10, I didn’t really count. I just noticed the word “raspberry” kept popping up in the titles.

I guess those recipes will have to wait till summer to be made.