Oops, I Did It Again

Y'all I think I might have accidentally learned how to cook! Now you might not be watching me on Chopped any time soon, but there's plenty more time to take over a five star restaurant and become a James Beard winner learn how to successfully follow a recipe.

That's right! With a little help from my new favorite food blog, Skinnytaste, I have made 2 meals in the past 4 days! From scratch! With no peel away plastic and microwave times!! If this was a movie, this is where the Hallelujah chorus would play full blast. Are you imagining it? Ok, good.

On Saturday I made homemade crab cakes (without the red pepper), some sauteed zucchini and a sweet potato. It was delicious! With that being said, I will now save this recipe for special occasions because it is a bit expensive to buy all the ingredients. This poor twenty something lifestyle does not fit in well with expensive crab meat, but I would absolutely recommend it otherwise!

Bad iPhone photo, delicious meal

Last night I was bit by the culinary bug again and decided to surprise Jon with one of his favorites: Hamburger/Salisbury Steak and homemade mashed potatoes. This was a little larger of an undertaking than I am used to, especially since I am one of those girls who can barely tolerate looking at the meat section in a grocery store, but it was, again, well worth it!

For this recipe you mix beef and turkey meat (to make it a little more healthy), and I must say I really liked the combination. I did not have any of the bread crumbs that the recipe mentioned so, instead, I used the crushed ritz I had bought for the crab cakes. There were quite a few steps to the meat and sauce preparation, especially for a one step microwaver like me, but all in all the meal was finished in about an hour and 15 minutes. (And eaten in about 10, isn't it crazy how that happens?!)

I obviously need to work on my presentation / food photography skills

As for the potatoes, I can thank my Nama and Papa for that lesson. I just boiled some chopped up potatoes for about 20 min, drained the water, added butter, skim milk, pepper and salt, and we were good to go.  Oh yea, and off course did a little mashing dance. To Zee Avi's Concrete Wall (check it out, its so catchy!), that's normal right?

Maybe one day I will build up the culinary confidence to have a dinner party and show off my Bobby Flay like skills, but until then I'll just blog about it and imagine y'all are applauding me while staring at your computer screens.