Cooking with Lindsay

In an effort to reduce our eating out expenses and in the time-honored tradition of the American household, I've decided to make it a priority to cook an evening meal for our family of two.

Now, how long this will last, I do not know.

After growing up with an amazing cook for a mother, and never having an interest in the kitchen for 26 of the 27 years of my life, I've never felt a need to exert extra energy towards preparing regular meals. I lived on my own for several years before I got married, so it was really more of a hassle to drag stuff out to cook when I could just eat a bowl of cereal for dinner, or go to Chick-fil-A.

Plus, my defiance of the kitchen for many years left me without a knowledge bank of cooking skills. None of this, of course, is due to the lack of attempts by my mother to teach me the ropes of the kitchen. I was interested in learning to make cookie dough, but that was about it. The cookies rarely got baked, because I ate the cookie dough.

There was a brief stint where I attempted to clear my name of all negative cooking comments. I decided to make homemade ice cream for some friends. As luck would have it, the lid popped slightly open during the "churning" part, and tons of rock salt entered into the ice cream mixture. Needless to say, that was not a positive move towards cooking confidence.

Thank goodness for Google. Terms like "al dente" leave me looking at the cookbook with blank stares. Luckily, there's Pioneer Woman. If you aren't keeping up with Pioneer Woman on a regular basis, then you're missing out. She's a city woman turned rancher's wife. She's an amazing photographer, witty, and a heck of a cook. She released her first cookbook this year, and my loving husband purchased it for me.

It's the perfect cookbook for me, because 1) it has pictures for each step, 2) also has a nice collection of non-cooking photography, and c) it has pictures for each step. Yes, I meant to list that twice.

Most of my full-fledged meal attempts were straight from the Pioneer Woman's site or her cookbook. I tried her "Best Lasagna - Ever" last week for some friends, and so far, no one has fallen ill.

Last night, I made her "Italian Meatball Soup" and it was mighty tasty. Her recipes call for fresh ingredients, which allow me to use our super cool (and sharp) knife set we got for our wedding. That's the best part of cooking - chopping stuff up.

This recipe called for homemade meatballs - a first in my brief cooking career. I guess anything above cookie dough and taco meat would be a first in my cooking career.

The meatballs consisted of 3/4 pound of beef, some chopped parsley, salt, oregano, Parmesan cheese, garlic cloves, and eventually an egg.

I rolled them together, put them in the frig to chill, then started hacking away on the veggies.

Obviously, Pioneer Woman has much better step-by-step photos than me, but I liked all the colors that the ingredients made...silly, I know, but I was trying to enjoy myself.

Although the recipe says it takes about an hour and 15 minutes to prepare this meal, it took me two hours. Oh, and I was supposed to wrap some herbs into a cheesecloth to soak in the soup. I didn't have a cheesecloth, so I used an old sock that had a worn down heel. My mom suggested that, so don't gag. Plus, it worked. Who needs a cheesecloth anyway? I don't even know what that looks like.

It was a tasty, filling meal, and another night of eating out was avoided.