The Idiot Chef, Day 1

This is probably my sixth or seventh foray into blogging, all of which seem to have petered out. Apparently I say what I have to say, and then I move on. But this is different. This is a particular project that I will strive to see through to the end. Even if no one reads it but me.

The goal is to document for one period of time my adventures in cooking. I'm starting small. Document one day. Once that's done successfully, we'll try for one week. Then one month. And from there...well, who knows?

Let me confess right now: I am not an amazing cook. I can follow a recipe fairly well, and I can innovate around a given pattern (so you give me a recipe, I can start playing with it to try and make it better). What I can't do is take a list of random ingredients and figure out what to do with them (well, I can, but only if they're things I use all the time). So don't expect this to be haute cuisine (I say to myself, since I'm the only one reading).

What I'm going to try to do is spend however long I spend updating this thing putting together an idiot's cookbook (title callback!). See, I have a job right now that I a) hate and b) pays me less than the federal poverty line. So I can't eat out much; and I can't cook expensive meals (so don't go expecting Julie & Julia here; French cooking this ain't). But I need something to keep me from beating my head against a wall over my job, so this is it. Congratulations, you're my replacement Prozac.

An idiot's cookbook is just a collection of recipes that any idiot can do right. They don't require esoteric skills like poaching an egg by hand (which I have done, although I am not confident I could do it again), or even specialized equipment like a grill (because fire can burn idiots). My main purpose here is to put these recipes all in one place where I know where to find them. If anybody comes along and reads them and gets use out of them, so much the better, but I don't really care.

So, ground rules:

1) I don't measure. Where I can, I'll try and give you descriptors of how much I use ("cover the bottom of the pan," "a heaping spoonful," etc). But sometimes it'll be, "pour it 'til it looks right."

2) No pictures for now. I know - food porn HAS to have pictures. I respect that, and if I could give you pictures, I would. But I don't own a camera (stupid cat broke mine), and so I'll try and give you a visual description. Until some kind reader sees fit to buy me a digital camera (which I am NOT. ASKING. FOR.), no pictures.

3) I'm going to enable comments, although why, I don't know. If anyone out there is reading and is moved to comment, don't be a douchenozzle, as my ex used to say (may still say, for all I know). I am the sole arbiter of douchenozzleyness, and there is no appeal. Don't like it? Fuck you.

So. In a little bit (as in, "I am hitting 'post' and then starting a new post") I will offer up tonight's dinner, whose defining characteristic is "there was no meat thawed." That's right, on day 1 we go straight to vegetarianism!