This blog is meant to be the stories of an amateur chef to the amateur chef, a slight blind leading the blind mentality except I make the mistakes so you don't have to. Seeing as I have no culinary experience (unless watching excessive amounts of food network, and keeping up with about five different food blogs counts?) I learn from a lot of trial and error, and a lot of research. A few more facts about me:
I started this blog to because I love to cook, to bake, and to eat. There is just something extremely comforting about taking a bunch of raw ingredients and making something completely different with them. Another reason is to document my experiences and my ideas about cooking from scratch. It’s kind of been my life goal to learn to cook all my favorite dishes from scratch; I eat processed food but only do so while in protest, no I'm not really that bad about it, but aside from my occasional craving for greasy food fast food is kind of the bane of my existence, I like to make and eat food that I know where most of it came from. Now I will admit I definitely take shortcuts from time to time but I try my hardest not to. Now for the food...
For the first dish I've decided to share is something extremely simple. The other day while rifling through my fridge I found a forgotten packet of baby spinach leaves on the verge of going bad and so decided to throw something together with the contents of my fridge. Recipe calls for:
SERVES: 1
2 cps uncooked spinach leaves
1 tsp minced garlic (about one clove)
1 1/2 TBS diced onion (yellow or otherwise)
2 TBS plain whipped cream cheese (whipped was in my fridge if you use regular cream cheese cut amount to 1 TBS)
1 (heaping) TBS sour cream
a couple drops of milk preferably 2% or higher no more than 1 TBS
1-2 pats of butter (really depends on the size of the pan you use, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan when melted)
I added about a good bit of sausage slices, just the pre-cooked kind you find along with sandwich meat in the refrigerator section of the grocery store
salt and pepper to taste
First chop the onions and garlic, rinse of the spinach leaves, if needed, and give the leaves a rough chop. Next melt the butter in the pan (at heat a one or two notches hotter than medium), move around every now and then make sure not to burn it, once butter is completely melted and covers the bottom of the pan.
Add the sliced sausage (about a quarter inch thick slices) to the pan letting them brown on one side for about 1-2 minutes and then flip the slices over for about a minute.
Toss in the chopped onions and garlic, stir occasionally. Once the onions become slightly opaque and yellow turn the heat down to medium add the spinach, a couple drops of milk and the softened cream cheese (this is better to add not straight from the fridge and in small amounts so that it will melt more evenly and faster)
Once the cream cheese is almost fully melted mix in the sour-cream, salt and pepper to taste and serve.
This recipe would taste even better with some corkscrew pasta and some parmesan cheese! If only I kept my pantry better stocked.
-Julie
I started this blog to because I love to cook, to bake, and to eat. There is just something extremely comforting about taking a bunch of raw ingredients and making something completely different with them. Another reason is to document my experiences and my ideas about cooking from scratch. It’s kind of been my life goal to learn to cook all my favorite dishes from scratch; I eat processed food but only do so while in protest, no I'm not really that bad about it, but aside from my occasional craving for greasy food fast food is kind of the bane of my existence, I like to make and eat food that I know where most of it came from. Now I will admit I definitely take shortcuts from time to time but I try my hardest not to. Now for the food...
Creamed Spinach
 |
| The finished dish (I apologize for the shoddy camera work ). |
SERVES: 1
2 cps uncooked spinach leaves
1 tsp minced garlic (about one clove)
1 1/2 TBS diced onion (yellow or otherwise)
2 TBS plain whipped cream cheese (whipped was in my fridge if you use regular cream cheese cut amount to 1 TBS)
1 (heaping) TBS sour cream
a couple drops of milk preferably 2% or higher no more than 1 TBS
1-2 pats of butter (really depends on the size of the pan you use, just enough to cover the bottom of the pan when melted)
I added about a good bit of sausage slices, just the pre-cooked kind you find along with sandwich meat in the refrigerator section of the grocery store
salt and pepper to taste
First chop the onions and garlic, rinse of the spinach leaves, if needed, and give the leaves a rough chop. Next melt the butter in the pan (at heat a one or two notches hotter than medium), move around every now and then make sure not to burn it, once butter is completely melted and covers the bottom of the pan.
Add the sliced sausage (about a quarter inch thick slices) to the pan letting them brown on one side for about 1-2 minutes and then flip the slices over for about a minute.
Toss in the chopped onions and garlic, stir occasionally. Once the onions become slightly opaque and yellow turn the heat down to medium add the spinach, a couple drops of milk and the softened cream cheese (this is better to add not straight from the fridge and in small amounts so that it will melt more evenly and faster)
Once the cream cheese is almost fully melted mix in the sour-cream, salt and pepper to taste and serve.
This recipe would taste even better with some corkscrew pasta and some parmesan cheese! If only I kept my pantry better stocked.
-Julie
