{"id":10438,"date":"2010-12-21T08:16:39","date_gmt":"2010-12-21T16:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=10438"},"modified":"2010-12-23T21:29:32","modified_gmt":"2010-12-24T05:29:32","slug":"10-things-the-kitchen-taught-me-in-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=10438","title":{"rendered":"10 Things The Kitchen Taught Me in 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Cooking<\/a>

Cooking is Hard<\/p><\/div>\n

If you’re new to my blog let me inform you that I am not much of a cook. Or at least–I never used to be. When I was a single girl living alone I ate a lot frozen foods and foods that came from a box. In my journey to lose weight and live a healthier life I realized I had to start eating REAL FOOD.<\/p>\n

I also realized how much fun trying new recipes can be!\u00a0 I learned a lot this year and wanted to share a few gems.<\/p>\n

\n

Some Things the Kitchen Taught Me in 2010<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

\n

1. Don’t Broil Fish<\/a>. Ever.<\/strong><\/em> While that experience was awful at the time I’m glad I managed to turn around a Kitchen Failure into something pretty darn delicious.<\/p>\n

2. Don’t add water to Pumpkin Puree<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em> This turned out to be a really delicious dinner– saved from disaster!<\/p>\n

3. Put Sugar Cookie Dough<\/a> in the fridge in between each batch<\/strong><\/em> for easier rolling\/cutting. Oh and always take your cookies out a minute or so early. They’ll still cook on the baking sheet.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

4. Always read instructions.<\/strong><\/em> Before trying a recipe. One of my flaws is impatience. I know this about myself and I try to improve my patience whenever I can. But sometimes it gets the best of me. I’ve been known to skim recipes, think I have everything and understand the instructions, then half way through cooking realize I made a stupid mistake. Ooops.<\/p>\n

5. Don’t substitute weird things. <\/strong><\/em>My mom isn’t the best cook. It’s kind of the family joke but it’s sadly true. She can bake but when it comes to cooking her skills lie elsewhere (she’s a wonderful artist). To give you an example<\/span>:<\/strong> the first time I took Michael home to Seattle to meet my family my mom made this horrible dip and we all ate it and said it was wonderful but…yea…So she made a Spinach Artichoke Dip but she didn’t have artichokes so she substituted a can of diced chilies. What? There are no words to describe it. We just laugh now. And it’s funny because sometimes I ask Michael if I can substitute a certain thing in a recipe and he says “Don’t be your mother. No substituting!”<\/strong> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

6. Make sure I have ALL of the ingredients before I start cooking.<\/strong><\/em> I’ve made this mistake too many times to count. “Oh crap I don’t have a Bay leaf!” or “Uh oh, I have the wrong kind of canned stewed tomatoes–back to the store I go!”<\/p>\n

7. I can cook a whole chicken<\/a>!<\/strong><\/em> I was really proud of myself for attempting this recipe and NOT getting freaked out by the whole “cooking an entire chicken” thing.<\/p>\n

8. Trying new things can be awesome<\/a>!<\/strong><\/em> The West African Cashew Soup is probably by far the best recipe I’ve tried in 2010. I am really happy with how it turned out; the soup was delicious, and the fact that I’m still thinking about how good it was a month later means it was a good recipe!<\/p>\n

9. Bacon makes everything better. <\/strong><\/em>There’s no further explanation needed.<\/p>\n

10. Cook for someone you love. <\/strong><\/em>It makes the food taste even better.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Check out my new page for my Recipe Index<\/a>!<\/p>\n

QUESTION: What have you learned in the kitchen this year? Any tips, tools, recipes, lessons you want to share?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re new to my blog let me inform you that I am not much of a cook. Or at least–I never used to be. When I was a single girl living alone I ate a lot frozen foods and foods that came from a box. In my journey to lose weight and live a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1621,1964,1952,72,2124,1841,106,1960,1864,212,231,274,1869],"tags":[2129,2131,2128,2126,2127,2130,2125],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/COOKIES.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10438"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10438"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10844,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10438\/revisions\/10844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}