Happy Thanksgiving + a "Cooking" update

Happy Thanksgiving :-)

The holiday celebrating family, food and gratitude. I love it!

While I am good at the gratitude and family time, I struggle with the food. Not the eating it, don't worry; As I type this blogpost, I'm entirely too stuffed on turkey, green beans and pumpkin pie.

However, the part of food I'm struggling with is the cooking part. I still haven't quite caught on : /

As I was in the kitchen today with my Granny and my mom - both of whom are phenomenal cooks - I fessed up on my most recent kitchen catastrophe...

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Earlier this week I had some friends over to chat and bake cookies. Yea... about that. We thought why bother with baking???

We so urgently wanted our cookies that we decided to just eat the dough ;)

However, in the urgency to make the dough, we didn't want to wait for the stick of butter to reach room temperature. So I just put the bowl with the butter in the microwave... and then....

Flames. Yes.  Flames.

My friends screamed and turned around from the kitchen table. "What happened?" they asked.

I had used a metal bowl.
I thought it would be ok for just a few seconds.
FALSE.

Fortunately, I stopped it so quickly that not only was the microwave unharmed, the dough was still fine :)

BUT, as if that wasn't bad enough for one night,
my kitchen klutzyness continued...

Since the oven was already preheated for the cookies, I figured I'd go ahead and bake some potatoes I wanted to use before leaving to go home for the holidays.

In my defense, I have baked many a potato in my day - and successfully. However, I always wrap them in aluminum foil.

Well, on this particular night, we were out of aluminum foil so I just plopped them on a cookie sheet.

About 20 minutes later after we'd already gone through all the cookie dough and were in the middle of painting our nails, we heard a whistling noise.

"What is that?" my friend asked. We tracked down the noise to the oven. My sweet potatoes were whistling and my friend asked if I had poked holes in them. I said no, having no clue that one needed to.

I mean potatoes don't come with directions. And people aren't born knowing these things... or at least I wasn't.

I was about to attack the potatoes with a fork when my friend took over with a knife. Ha, oh well. At least I didn't learn the hard way by the potatoes blowing up!

My friends were concerned for my lack of culinary capabilities; they said that I remind them of Hannah Hart from My Drunk Kitchen. The only thing is I wasn't even drinking so I couldn't blame my kitchen klutzyness on alcohol... it's just all my inexperience.

Fortunately, once they were sliced, the potatoes cooked up quietly and perfectly - and the house didn't burn down!

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After sharing this story, my mom who was appalled (and probably ready to disown me!) in all seriousness suggested that I might benefit from taking this book back with me after the holidays:

That would be my Kindergarten cookbook - for ages 4 and up. 

Sadly, that is probably the level I'm at ;) We'll see if this helps... I'll keep ya posted! 

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!!!!!!!!!

Wannabe Homemaker in Need of a Handyman...

This is not a personal ad - I promise ;)

BUT, it is a plea.

Gah! It has been soooooooo long since I last posted. I was figuring now that I am out of school, I'd have all of this extra time to write more posts than ever before but... yea, clearly not :/

So what have I been up to? Other than not blogging, obviously ;)

I have been trying to balance 2 jobs, socializing, learning to cook, and finishing moving in to my new place. Plus, I've been trying my hand at homemaking.

While I am happy to report that I am catching on to this whole cooking thing, I am afraid to say that I am failing at the homemaking thing. Well, that might not be quite true: I try to keep things tidy and I have decorated things all matchy-matchy in a cute color scheme BUT I had an epic failure recently:

I was trying to sew some curtains. See, the problem here is that I just bit off more than I could chew... I got a bit too big for my Betty Crocker britches. The Southern Belle in me thought I could handle this. Wrong.

I had the fabric cut and the hem pinned but I couldn't get the sewing machine to work. With the help of a friend I got the machine up and running but then I couldn't get the stitching to work. Stitches were dropped and it just became a tangled mess, clogging up the machine and frustrating me beyond belief. After blowing some steam at the gym I came back and still no luck - not then.... or the next day. Or the next day :(

Perhaps, I'll revoke my previous post...? 

My curtains still sit in the corner :(

I am going to the person I borrowed the machine from tomorrow in hopes that she can help me and give me a lesson in how to be be a real homemaker. Or at least how to be a seamstress!


But that's not all. 

I need a handyman.

I had another recent fail. The Feminist in me doesn't want to admit it. I was trying to be all Miss Independent BUT technology outdid me :(

I bought a universal remote for my tv and thought I could figure it out easy enough. Just read the directions... right? I mean, I have a college degree now, afterall ;)

Unfortunately, my college degree was no good. I spent an hour mashing buttons and inputting codes and reading every single word in the flippin' instructions.

All to no avail.

No matter what I did, the remote wouldn't work. And, to make matters worse, there is no 1-800 customer service number to call. Yes, that should have been red flag number one. But I missed it. Now I'm left with ineffective instructions, no working remote and the urge to throw my remote at my tv.

Sooooooo, I'm in search of a handyman to help me out ;)

I admit my inadequacy in the sewing and technology departments but hopefully soon enough that will change! 

Any B.I.T.C.H. Can Cook... at least I hope so!

I have a couple of disclosures.

1.) I am a B.I.T.C.H. - or at least I hope I am.... a Babe In Total Control of Herself [I didn't come up with that myself... see below!]

I recently moved away from home and out into the "real world."

I have quickly discovered that being away from my mom's good home cookin' and out of college where I once had access to a decent meal plan makes eating a bit tougher than I anticipated.

2) I can't cook. It pains me to acknowledge this but - at least at this point in life - it is true.

I attempted egg-drop soup once but put the egg in too early. This resulted in something more like juicy scrambled eggs. It was an epic fail :/

But, I'm trying to get better.

Fortunately, I have the perfect cookbook to help me.

Someone gave this cookbook to my 80-year-old grandmother but she did not need or want it:

Yes, that is correct: someone gave my 80-year-old grandmother an animal print cookbook with that title.

The first page clarifies that they are really talking about any "Babe In Total Control of Herself" which is where I got that from :) Very Southern Belle Feminist, right?

 Lucky for me, my grandmother thought I might appreciate it so she sent it my way.

Not only does the book have quotes (which I LOVE) intermingled with the recipes but the recipes are on my level.... i.e. they even have a recipe for how to make a grilled cheese. While I can actually make that, I can't make much more than that.

In addition to a bunch of basic recipes, this book has a great section on "Household Hints" that explain different pan sizes and ingredient substitutes as well as spice selections and so much more... it truly is the perfect cookbook for someone who is new to the world of cooking.

If you too are a Babe (or Boy) In Total Control of Yourself who is in need of some culinary guidance then feel free to order your own copy here.

What is funny is that in researching this post, I realized my cookbook is one of many in a series of provocatively named cookbooks that cover a variety of dishes and cooking styles. Check those out too if you're interested!

While my rudimentary diet of pb&js and fruit has a positive in that I've lost a pound or two, I figure that when the kids I babysit are eating precisely what I am... it might be time to "spice things up."

So, here's to hoping that any B.I.T.C.H. can, in fact, cook!